


Bloody Cape

by Gilded_Pleasure



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: And Uhhh Some Torture Probably, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Boredom and Bureaucracy on the High Seas, But If There’s Fuckin I WILL Describe It, Cat Farts, Disability, Lite Human OC Sprinkles For Pirate Purposes, Minor Gross-Out Stuff, More Plot Than Fuckin, Mysterious Coves and Whatnot, Other, People Get Beat Up N Stuff, People Like This More Than I Thought They Would!, Permanent Injury, Pirates!! Oceans!! Unnecessary History Facts!!, Punctuated By Short Interludes of Extreme Violence, Raunchy Kustard Adventures, Slice of Life, Stabby Children, Strong Possibility of Minor Character Death, The Fell Bros Being Complicated, There’s A Lotta Violence In This Juicy Lil Peach Folx, Time Travel, Unorthodox Cusswords, Whump, kustard - Freeform, realistic reactions to trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:15:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 65,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24279451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gilded_Pleasure/pseuds/Gilded_Pleasure
Summary: Sure, being a pirate king sounds like the best shit ever, right up until you realize you have to live on a fucking boat.Red can’t explain how he ended up in this strange human world with his brother, much less became captain of their stolen ship full of stupid, dangerous humans conned along on their search for a place that doesn’t exist.But he has a few theories, and he does know one thing.Someone’s gonna fucking pay.
Relationships: Papyrus & Sans (Undertale), Sans/Sans (Undertale)
Comments: 176
Kudos: 99





	1. Rag and Bone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cat Power – Salty Dog  
> https://youtu.be/SyhXrQEKPaY

Bloody Cape, the Immortal Pirate King of the Mosquito Coast, makes unflinching eye contact with the greenest member of his crew.

The human gasps visibly if not audibly from this distance, and he makes sure to hold his gaze while he tucks his clawed fingers down his pants and scratches his coccyx.

From the front.

He snickers as those jelly-meat eyes go perfectly round, irises like cabochon onyx glittering with alarm. Probably thinks he’s casting some kinda special skeleton evil-eye from the inside of his pelvis or something. Then his grin goes bitter, because even him doing normal shit freaks them out at first. Used to be everyone being afraid of him was a bonus, a _goal_. Now it just makes shit take longer, greenies mopping their own piss off the deck all damn day instead of doing something useful.

Sure, being a pirate king _sounds_ like the best shit ever, right up until you realize you have to live on a fucking _boat_. Windblown, sun-baked, rained on, the only escape being the claustrophobic quarters he shares with his brother. There never _isn’t_ salt crusting up his ass. He scratches it for a goddamn reason.

“Breaking the greensticks with public masturbation again, Sans?”

That jagged voice always grabs his attention no matter how far it wanders without fail. ‘Red’ (to the crew, and ‘Sans’ now only occasionally to his brother and a world he thinks he might not ever see again) huffs a sharp breath through his serrated teeth.

“gotta get em used ta us somehow, boss,” he mutters sourly. He darts his eyelights up and down his brother’s meticulously draped and padded bones. “dunno why you bother. the meatbags all know what’s really in there.”

“They know what’s under each _other’s_ rags as well,” Papyrus, now referred to as “Sir”, “Boss”, or “Edge” depending on the speaker’s rank and context, miffs lightly. “And yet, they stubbornly continue to _wear clothing_. Remarkable.”

Red snickers, comforted by his brother’s familiar digs regarding Red’s carefully curated mode of dress. He’s in no rush to let Red know why he’s not waiting til dog watch to have this discussion, which bodes well. Bad news pops out quick; good news gets sweeter with a nice long tease first.

Red glances over at his brother’s deceptively beefed up body. Edge prefers to leave absolutely everything to the imagination, and when Red’s in a generous temper he can admit to himself that that’s probably for the best. Let humans convince themselves the boss’s face is some kind of mask built on to that ridiculous hat he’s so attached to, his body wrapped in layers that allow the fiction that a very lean human form _could_ be inside them. It’s dumb as hell, but it still lubricates the interactions when Edge has to go and represent whatever the hell this is to already-twitchy human liaisons and middlemen. That’s where he’s been all morning, after all.

Red roams his own decks and those not long for this world alike with his ragged shirt open and mustard-and-black striped leggings slung low, belt weighed down with pistol, knife, pouches and trinkets. It leaves everything between his chin and his pubic symphysis exposed like a cocky dare. Well, mostly. The wealth of both precious and tawdry strings of gems and beads that dangles over his chest decorates the goods without actually concealing anything. Strings of pearls twine around and between ribs, just to make certain no one fools themselves into thinking it’s a cleverly painted mummer’s shirt.

Scaring the shit out of people _not_ on his crew is right at the top of Red’s job description, after all. Some things never change.

And hey, it’s not like he’s not tasteful. Tacking a strip of lace from each body at his feet that has any onto his own raggedly ballooning sleeves as trophies from each scow they send to the bottom? That’s some seriously romantic shit! Straight outta those trashy novels he used to fish out of the dump and hide in his mattress back in Snowdin. The salt crust covers most of the blood anyhow.

The crimson, tooled-leather powder horn dangling from his crotch miiight be a little much, but Red’s a little skeleton. A little much is just his size, and there ain’t that much shit here that’s the same color as his magic anyhow. Besides, the way Edge scoffs and rolls his eyelights every time Red does something to remind him it exists is more than worth the trouble he went to fishing that captain’s corpse up long enough to loot it.

“hey now. you start complaining too much about my cool style, i might have to change it,” Red taunts mildly. “then how are folks supposed to know i’m ~the~ bloody cape??” Red tugs the ragged remains of Edge’s formerly regulation Guard cloak, a weatherbeaten fox pelt basted onto the collar for a once-luxurious, now-just-creepy fashion statement. Their eyes meet, and they share a rich fuckin’ chuckle over that one.

A pair of red-eyed skeleton monsters are slightly _noticeable_ in world that seems to have only humans and creepily silent animals in it.

“One would have thought they’d have come up with names relevant to the fact that we are quite literally walking, breathing avatars of their own deaths,” Edge muses for what must be the hundredth time. “ _Asgore_ could have done better.”

“hurts jus’ thinkin’ bout what coulda been, don’t it, boss? bone daddy and the long goodbye,” Red snerks, accepting the invitation presented him.

“The Skeletons of Penzance,” Edge shoots off.

“rattlebones and the ivory windchime.”

Edge raises his browbones at Red’s unusual lack of genital references.

“Corny Von Horny and Memento Mori,” Edge pronounces, and hoo boy. Red hyperventilates with the need to laugh, sucks moisture back into his sockets through sheer willpower. He must have been saving that one up special.

“dickless and dicklesser,” Red wheezes, and that sets them both off for a good thirty seconds of suppressed hilarity.

“That doesn’t have anything to do with skeletons,” Edge quivers out, stone-faced as an actual sailor rushes by, bare feet slapping on the deck as he makes a quick, thoughtless bob of respect in passing. “You’re disowned for cheating!”

“you sayin’ boners don’t count?” Red says motionlessly through the casual, depraved grin he always aims at the scuttling crew. Business as usual, clear skies to port if they had one.

“That nickname disqualifies them by necessity!” Edge protests, voice tight with the cheap amusement that’s priceless at times like these.

“you’re just mad about being dicklesser,” Red maintains, then makes a broad gesture towards the stern to signal his approval for the sailors to actually fucking sail the boat or whatever. Seems like they need it every twenty minutes, but everyone gets antsy if he’s out here and doesn’t do it. Ugh. Humans are so _needy_. It pushes down his good humor just seeing it, and Red surrenders the game. Keeping a straight face loses its charm when it’s easy to do.

“greensticks need to _get_ used ta me, otherwise they ain’t gonna be _of_ use to me,” Red says. “pushin’ em now saves time when it counts. can’t afford to have em sliding overboard on their own shitted pants once the bones start flying, and if they can’t handle me scratching my own ass now an’ then...”

There’s a reason so many folks want to join up: Red and Edge’s men rarely even have to fight anyone. Their ship’s full of cartographers, artisans, navigators, and linguists, along with people who can actually fucking sail, repair, and maintain the vessel. Much preferable to clogging their quarters with a bunch of fractious meatheads just for getting pointy when the shit hits the hurricane, and can’t keep the points _down_ when it’s clear seas and skies. Too many of those types take violently to boredom.

Red would know; he’s one of them.

The brothers take care of the heavy lifting, considering they haven’t yet crossed a human whose piddly weapons could hold a candle to their magic. Not all the way from another boat, anyways, and humans here have no idea how vulnerable monsters are not to their firearms, but to their intentions. Red and Edge are in more danger living in close quarters with their own crew than anything target ships might throw at them. Hence the strict importance given to good relations. They don’t even bother weighing down their hold with ammo anymore.

~~It’s already heavy enough.~~

Sure, there are cannons and guns lining the appropriate spots, but they’re in a state of disrepair and entirely for appearances. A gunless ship attracts too much notice when they need to cruise on by. Add in an unsinkable ship and the same perks most pirates sign on for: more and better food, their freedom, contractual rights and more intermittent luxuries than they’d get any way else, and they practically have to beat em off with a stick.

Up until they actually _see_ the captain and his quartermaster.

Red puts humans at ease by being his usual disgusting self and doing things like constantly calling ships _boats_ , which annoys the everloving fuck out of most humans who use them regularly. Edge does his part by doing the minimum to _look_ less obviously like a completely inhuman monster, and behaving like someone they can have an almost-normal conversation with.

It doesn’t always work.

It’s funny how much they’ve changed these past few. Edge use to be all flamboyance and hotheadedness, even after he made second in command to Undyne. Sure, he was disciplined, but now those explosions of temper stay tamped right down along with whatever else goes on behind that long face of his. Red used to be fifty pounds of bullshit in a five pound bag, a sloppy loose canon going off every which way, and that... _well_. That hasn't actually changed.

Edge sighs, gets back to the point.

“It’s a direct opposition of logic, brother. Terrifying them needlessly only builds resentment, it doesn’t get them _used_ to you. For fuck’s sakes, _I’m_ not _used_ to you, and I don’t see why you feel the need to-” Red leers shamelessly, really digging in the crevices as his brother cuts off with a scowl. “I am eternally flattered by how you value my input, you revolting hell-goblin.”

Red just grins and finishes scraping salt out of his topmost right sacral foramen, staring his brother down as he lifts his egregiously beringed fingers to sniff. Edge’s twitching maxilla is too much temptation (and Red’s beyond fucking bored). Red concentrates to get his mouth to drop, then gives his salty claws a diddly tip-licking to watch Edge suppress the skeleton equivalent of a gag.

“i’d share, but i think you got enough salt in that _attitude_ a yours, _baby_ brother,” Red smirks. Then he offers the fingers anyhow because Edge can’t slap him in front of the crew, just to watch the predictable disgust crawl across those scarred features as Red’s fouled claws wave perilously close to his face.

Red’s allowed to cut loose more than Edge is, being the captain of this shitpile despite hardly anyone addressing him as such. Pirates ain’t that formal anyways, but Edge’s sour puss is in charge of meting out punishments and rewards, so most of the men step livelier around his mopey highness anyhow.

Captains fuck around, dress nice, bust everyone’s balls and generally make a nuisance of themselves. That’s kind of the point of being one, right? Makes up for the whole first-to-be-hanged if they run into (or create) an unsolvable problem. Red figures it’s practically expected of him. _Edge_ is _Red’s_ second in command now, no matter that Red still calls him ‘boss.’ That’s just another nickname here on the _Boneripper_ , and Red being obnoxious when Edge can’t _do_ anything about it reassures the men, makes them confident the pecking order still holds water.

Or at least that’s what Red says when it’s convenient. It’s not like he didn’t eat a dozen shit sandwiches a week from his loving brother ~for appearances~ back in Snowdin, and none of _these_ little scenes involve carefully calculated public beatings. Not like that shit didn’t still hurt, but he saw as much pain in Edge’s eyes then as there is poorly-hidden amusement in them now. Things are different since they came here. In some ways they’re actually a lot better, almost as if that whole dealie about ‘getting to the surface’ actually had a point. Red didn’t always feel that way about it, but there it is.

Feeling emotions like “hope” doesn’t lose its novelty, just so long as Red can hang onto its tattered coattails above the pit of despair that never stops burning his soul out like a dying coal. He jabs his fingers at his casually weaving brother few more times, briefly looking forward to what comes next.

“I hate you _so_ fucking _much_ , you overseasoned firkin of rancid poultry carcasses,” Edge whispers, crimson eyelights wobbling with hilarity and something dangerously close to fondness. “I hope you get impaled the next time you try to fuck your poxy asshole on the bowsprit so I can finally take charge of this shitheap and demote you to a figurehead that scares sharks out of the water for friday night fryup.”

“love you too, boss,” Red hisses, then makes a shockingly loud kissy noise deep in his skull as he wipes the ass crust off on his already-crusted leggings. Honestly, this whole shitshow might be worth it to see his brother finally fucking loosen _up_ a little.

Well. Loose for _him_ , at least. His baby bro’s always been wound tighter than a crocodile's springloaded cock, ready to burst throbbing for vengeance out of a cloaca swinging at the right kind of provocation. But for some unknowable reason, these roughnecked meatbags with their dental problems and tragic backstories bring out his softer side. Gross.

“speakin a seasoning,” Red continues, “that why you’re chatting me up, or you jus’ trying to talk me into a bedtime handy?”

Edge sighs, sober expression returning as he begins his recitation. Not that anyone but Red can tell the difference.

“Pickled peppers for water even-weight, kippers in oil to ingots five-one, slop shirts to raw sailcloth….”

Edge quickly runs down the trade proposal from the vessel cracking along in step with them a league or so to the north. It’s neither of their mutual businesses why the other won’t just dock for resupply, and Red’s fine with it as long as he gets what he needs out of it. The terms of this trade ain’t too shabby, and part of Red’s mind listens and catalogues while the rest of it wanders restlessly.

He perks up at the mention of spice casks. The ship’s surgeon has been reporting low supply on medicines most ships count among “spices”; otherwise the price’d be exponentially higher.

“they really got the goods, huh?”

Edge inclines his skull smugly.

“Against _tallow_ , if you can believe it. Two to one.” So dirt cheap Red literally shudders with avarice; these rubes must’ve come fresh from a spice port, ship’s fat belly full of unknown curatives _they_ mostly use for covering the scent of spoiled meat.

The crew of the _Boneripper_ ’s uncommonly blessed with good health, and that kinda word gets around too. Red gets a kick out of that word involving a pact with the devil, but in reality it’s just Tibam’s skill in treating wounds and doling out medicines. Edge enforcing use of chewsticks helps, but a lotta these human's teeth gave up the ghost long ago.

Edge also makes them drink their bumbo when it’s given; hoarding gets paid for in lashes. (He tells them it’s because he can’t stand their stink.) The special recipe was developed by Tibam and Edge in tandem, the usual mixture of water, rum, sugar, and lemon juice enriched with ginger, cayenne, turmeric, cinnamon and other medicinals that makes the crew refer to _Boneripper_ 's mandatory grog ration as ‘the heat’. They complain about it, but none make the connection between their twice-daily requirements and the remarkable lack of scurvy, gout, ulcerated wounds and dysentery that plague even the highest ranked military ships. The recipe’s secret from those who benefit from it, since it’s hard to keep loyalty on a ship that doesn’t really have shore leave, and also has Red on it. Better if they think it's magic.

From the sound of it as Edge continues, the bastards on the ship proposing are mostly hard up for what’s in the _Boneripper_ ’s hold in excess, and the good news keeps piling up.

There's always a chance they’ll Try It, though. Ain’t much trust on the open sea, any more than there was underground. They don’t want to ferry the goods, which makes Red suspicious; they want to park it on a sandbar. The one they’re suggesting makes him more so, considering how close it is to a certain...occupied…territory that Red would sacrifice his entire current crew to get access to. Heh. Might’ve done it already if he didn’t think he’d end up crewless _and_ cove-less in the attempt. Well. Maybe less a few of his crew. They’re not _all_ completely worthless. Eh.

“you know it sounds too good ta be true,” Red grunts when Edge finishes the list.

“There’s a catch.” That’s a relief, honestly.

“ya don’t say.”

Edge struggles with it, then growls out, “He wants to meet you.”

Red chuckles low but hearty.

“ohhh…sounds like somebody’s got a deckboy's crush on _bloody cape_.”

“Perhaps he merely doesn’t trust us.” Edge huffs softly. “Which is quite intelligent of him.”

“sounds like a real piece a work,” Red purrs lasciviously, watches his brother’s expression quiver towards disgust once more before he schools it. “makes me wonder if he’s got a piece worth workin’.”

“Oh, is that so? Well, since I know you have difficulty remembering verbal directions unless they are painstakingly reapplied to each new instance, please do your best not to trip, fall, and _magically_ land yaphole-first onto his erect penis,” Edge says, a dangerous censure in his deceptively light tone. It squashes Red’s temporarily lightened mood right back down into the seething rage that never goes anywhere, the pressure he’s under squirting unwise words out of him.

“i suck _one fucking dick_ in _four years_ an’ you’re not ever gonna let me forget it, huh?” he hisses through his frozen grin. Red’s sucked a lot more than one dick; that’s just the one Edge found out about. Again, living on a boat sucks. “here i am living it up hammering dust and nothing in my leggies like a good lil nun in the highlands, and i _still_ gotta fuckin hear it? habout you tell me in what fuckin’ verse is that shit _fair,_ baby _brother_??” Edge remains impassive despite the onslaught. “ _these_ useless shitheels barely do anything _else_ ,” Red adds, his sibilant whisper roughed with bitterness as he indicates his forbidden crew.

Captain ain’t _allowed_ to fuck the men; Red never sees anyone who isn’t right here for more than five minutes in an undisclosed location. So who the hell is he _supposed_ to fuck then?

Red tries to breathe steady through the simmering rage that’s always with him. One more turd on top of the shit mountain of why he needs a fucking _place_ to put his starforsaken _boat:_ so they can actually _rest_ and get their skulls on straight. Preferably somewhere populated with dicks, cunts, tentacles or maybe a lonely _goat_ his brother won’t tear him screaming away from because it ~LeAds INevitaBLy~ to ~soFTenED PROtocOL~ and ~DANgeROus ASSuMPtioNS~.

“I don’t _care_ what’s _fair_ as long as all our limbs stay attached,” Edge snaps crisply, and Red sees his namesake for a hot second. Watching his brother keelhaul the mutinous bosun to death (whose dick Red had indeed sucked in this instance, giving the Big Stupid officer some Big Stupid Ideas about The Immortal Pirate King’s potential mortality) hadn’t brought his left leg back, but it _had_ been satisfying anyways. Resentfully jacking it to enthusiastic matelotage overheard during his nightly commitment to celibacy is decidedly less so. Then even Red’s anger deflates, leaving him empty.

He’s so fucking _tired_.

None of it would matter so much if he had a place to put his fucking boat.

Their only choice with acceptable risk so far is to just to...never stop. Can’t rest in towns. Might as well blast a “FUCK ME OVER” sign across the sky in crimson bones, with an arrow pointing directly at the spot Red and Edge paused their constant defensive moving around. Can’t leave a bunch of humans to defend the ship against other humans, too many variables and too much at stake. It’s bad enough when they need repairs Sugar Jaques can’t handle, if only because he needs ten more arms to get it done. This heap of glorified firewood feels like a thimble when it’s packed full of reeking humans and floating across the surface of a planet with blue-on-blue horizon in every direction, but it’s actually huge and nigh-impossible to hide long enough and safely enough for _both_ of them to actually creep in somewhere. Or some _one_ , in Red’s case.

Rest and repairs are done with sweaty fervency on deserted sandbars so far out of the way, they end up needing to trade on the wind. It’s why Edge spent the morning negotiating after following the ship they’ hailed on the cockboat to meet up with theirs.

Red, as always, stayed put.

There’s one of them aboard _Boneripper_ at all times. And if there’s a representative needed, it’s always Edge. Although they’re both a lot more vulnerable than humans realize, Edge is still slightly less so. And after the whole leg thing….Red’s willing to play by the boss’s rules, even if he’ll never stop complaining about it. Sure, his peg’s begemmed, carved, and gilded; an opulent eyesore that makes humans blink when they dare look directly at it. But he’d rather have his own leg back, thank you very much, so no sneaking off to alleys, brothels, or cribs to get his skeleton business taken care of. No crewmen tickling his ivories to help him just forget how much everything sucks for an hour or two.

It’d be different if they had real shore leave. If Red could trust that the ship’s safe, have time to really suss out some hot piece’s intentions, someone who’s not gonna get ideas about favorites and privileges onship….

And because the ‘verse is a joke on him in particular, of course the only strategically placed, defensible, and properly supplied niche in the region he _could_ put it is….

_Occupied._

Red forces his thoughts away from that topic like it burned him. Self control ain’t exactly his modus operandi, and half the crew had taken a pass on re-upping at the next docking after his last little….lapse.

Discovering a hidey-hole as good as that one seems about as likely as finally finding someone who can tell him where “Ebott” is; a place no one in this verse has ever seemed to have _heard_ of, much less been. Maybe they’re on another planet or something, but he doesn’t think so. He’s pretty sure this is the same planet at a different time, outside the barrier, somewhere in the past or the future, and theoretically all their friends (and enemies, for that matter) are still trapped under a mountain no one seems to know the location of. This place as it stands is sitting pretty for monsters to reclaim a nice, meaty swath of what humans stole from them. But for all their hard hitting, their defenses are too uncertain, vulnerabilities too numerous. There’s no way Red and Edge can do it alone. They need _everyone_.

Red looks around at all the humans doing what they’re told, going where he says. Only three left from when he’d first started gathering em up, conning em under his flag. At first for two reasons only: he figured once they made it to Ebott, it’d be easy enough to tell em to get down in there and “find the treasure” or whatever the fuck. Only human souls can break the barrier, and Red’s gotta think if he sent _enough_ of em, even Asgore’s dumb ass could manage to break it and get everyone out.

Maybe see Alphie, Grillby, and Undyne again someday.

( ~~he doesn’t think about Tori.~~ )

Plenty of haggard shits in the unknown port town Red and his brother had come back to themselves in had been all over the idea of setting off for fucktown mcnowheresville to find juicy profit on a whim. Seems like a lotta these humans got the same idea right now, getting a big group of marks together and setting off for parts unknown to murder and rob the people already there, set up their own shops. Pushing credulous penny cons down a hole to get their just desserts woulda been easy as pie.

Turns out finding the right hole is the problem instead.

Red scratches himself again, sniffs it. That’s what _she_ said.

And just like underground, there’s nowhere safe up here, either. Not for a glass cannon like Red, nor his secretly benefit-of-the-doubt-giving brother who won’t stop collecting ship’s cats til they outnumber the goddamn _rats_. Even the bilge is running nearly deserted; there’s a reason they have to stay pokerfaced to keep from giving away just how much they _need_ those casks of kippered sardines. And there’s also a reason Red’s captain, while Edge is the quartermaster actually in charge of the men, of their watch shifts, slop rights, petty disputes and diets, and most importantly, their discipline and their punishments.

“Have you sufficiently calmed your tits, brother?”

Red’s eyes jerk back to Edge, and he growls at him. He’s right, but--

Red’s thoughts snap to a halt so quick he gets whiplash when Edge rips his glove off and grabs Red’s forearm under the lace, which only means one fucking thing.

Ever.

And sure enough, when Red takes a shortcut to the hold, that _same fuckin’ greenstick_ from earlier’s got fingers on a door that means death for any man aboard to touch. He’s already slammed against the wall, Red doesn’t even need to call any constructs to deal with this situation. Edge is an unshakeable boulder in Red’s blind spot, his solidity reliable as shitty luck and death.

Red knew he was acting weird. God _damn_ it. Red leans in, eyeballing the expression of a human who knows they just signed their own death warrant. What Red’s trying to suss out is _why_.

“HOW! FUCKING! VERrrRY _DARE_ YOU, YOU ANALLY!! _INFECTIOUS!!_ PISSPOT!” Edge bellows with his quartermaster’s voice. It’s loud enough to set Red’s skull buzzing. Pitched to carry over the strongest gale, in close quarters it makes the deckhand’s eyes water. Or maybe that’s just the fear, but Red doesn’t care.

“think you’re real _slick_ there, huh, pal?” Red says, low and sibilant to make the human pay attention. “welp. i got news for ya, dickstain. ain’t nowhere on this ship you c’n go that i don’t know bout. so.”

The deckhand quivers, weeping properly now as Red shakes him hard.

“you’re gonna tell me what in the deep blue fuck you think you were doin’ in _my hold_.” Nothing but more stuttered sobs answer him. Red’s already feeling pretty done with this. The last thing he needs right now are hands so green the fuckin _rats_ have seniority over ‘em, sneaking around belowdeck licking the doorknobs on the skeleton brothers’ little chamber of secrets.

“whuh-...wasn’t,--i-i-d--idn’t--dia-did--d-d--”

Red growls loudly in disgusted impatience, then just gives up. He _knows_ this fucker’s hiding something; he’s shitass terrified and Red’s not feeling kindly enough to figure out why anymore. Grip loosening, he starts to make a slashing motion instructing his brother to solve the issue permanently…when something _else_ finally pokes through the crimson haze of mindless rage.

The new boatboy’s face crumples and averts as Red’s hooked fingers tear his shirt out of his pants, eyes shut tight in an awful grimace as Red finds his soft and squishies with a rough bone claw. A bitten-off yip when it darts down to the baggy crotch of his breeches and squeezes hard.

Red meets Edge’s eyes as he yanks his hand away in disgusted annoyance; Edge rolls his sockets, but not before Red sees a flicker of relief in them.

It’s just _that_ bullshit again. Red finds the rags and the waterskin just to make sure, but this mystery ain’t. It’s just been a while since it came up, or he woulda figured this out sooner. Coulda prevented it like he _should_ have if his skull wasn’t crusted inside and out with salt, with the ceaseless, maddening wind blowing his thoughts all over til he can barely keep it together. Red leans in until he can see fresh sweat popping right out of the meatbag’s pores.

“the _only_ thing stopping me from spittin you like a squealer’s that ya _didn’t go in_ ,” Red hisses, shakes him by the already-torn collar. Then the deckhand yelps as Red slaps him hard with all his rings on, again when he slams him into the wall hard enough his teeth rattle. “you wash! yer rags! _on laundry day!_ jus’ like everyone else, you _sneakin_ ’ sack a _head-_ leavings!” Red punctuates every other word with a slap or a slam.

“They _can’t_ \--”

Red slams him again to shut him up.

“was none tha’ ever _ask_ _ed_ ya rod or hole,” Red manages through teeth clenched with rage. It’s the closest he gets to patience. “paper says ‘each man shall mark here if he agrees.’ you putcher mark on that paper?”

They both already know the answer, but he nods anyways.

“s’right!” Red huffs sharply. “only men mark that paper. only men on the _boneripper_. capiche?”

The human only stares hyperventilating and wide-eyed, a little trickle of blood running out of his nose. Red finally loses his temper.

He rummages in the dumbass’s pocket and yanks one of the old, blood-stiffened rags he was trying to clean without anyone seeing, then helpfully shoves it right in his face to smear the new blood around on it. He gags; good. Red keeps going til it flakes, then pulls it back and holds it up until he opens his eyes again. Red watches him get the fucking _point_. Finally.

Blood’s fucking _blood_. No way to tell _where_ it came from, and no one fucking cares. Washing off bloody rags on laundry day ain’t suspicious.

Red glares aggressively at his brother again while the human retches. Edge looks sour; he knows Red’s right.

_Scared_ humans make _dumbass decisions_ that’ll cause all kinds of problems. They get in trouble they can’t get out of, end up leaving the crew short a crucial hand. Get scared enough and they go out of their way to give themselves away, when just doing what they’re _supposed to_ would’ve left no one the wiser.

“no one gives a _shit_ about that here!” Red roars abruptly, making the deckhand flinch hard. “pair a tits ain’t getting you _or_ yer pay docked. sneakin’ around _my_ goddamned _hold_ like yer tuppin’ yer da’s wife’ll get you strung up in a dick’s twitch!”

The cowed greenstick surprises Red by having a little spine after all. Who knew.

“They’ll get _ideas_ ,” he hiccups through chattering teeth, sweating and shaking like the ague has him. “M-might as well toss me over now! I ain’t the sh-ship’s whore.”

Red stares for a long minute to make sure he knows what he’s talking about. Then he grins slow and sharp.

“all set ta prove how bright ya _ain’t_ , aren’tcha? boss here read you that paper ya marked day one, but i guess ya need a reminder, mm?”

Red chuckles nastily, yanks him forward by the collar for a condescending hair-ruffle before slamming him back.

“that _don’ happen_ here. if you’re feelin’ doubtful, ask around n see if someone’ll tell ya _why_.”

It’s because instead of finishing the judgment the old fashioned way once he’d gotten the straight of the scuffle, Red cut the meatbag’s dick and hands off and threw em the bait bucket. Then Edge tied what was left to the mast until it rotted off.

And yeah, maybe the screams had bummed everyone out for a day or three, and being ordered to use the bucket’s contents as intended had made the bosun faint.

He, along with a quarter of the crew, had deserted at the next docking, but good riddance to their asses, too. Not like it’s _Red’s_ fault it took him so long to die. The one who’d been attacked is Sugar Jacques, their carpenter and one of the three that stayed on from the beginning, who seems more in love with the _Boneripper_ than he cares about anything Red and Edge do. So that story always makes it way around.

Red sigh and smiles, shaking his head with nostalgia, then kicks the deckboy’s shin just shy of breaking bone with his gilded-steel-tipped boot toe. Huh. Based on the scream, he mighta chipped it a little, actually. Oh, well. That’s why _Edge_ handles this shit. This dingus is gonna have to visit the infirmary anyhow; Tibam can wrap it for him and give him a poppy draft. As an afterthought, Red throws him on the floor to groan and writhe.

“stripe him to the juice,” he says for his brother’s benefit. “again in two weeks.” After all, none of this was his actual punishment. This was just Red deigning to provide some remedial education about the ship’s laws. “ya hear that, chucklefuck? you get ta clean bloody rags _all month long_ now. don’tcha feel lucky?”

His weeping’s wordless, voice choked with sobs. But even the sliver of pain-twisted face Red can see makes it clear: the greenie _knows_ Red’s being merciful. Good to see he’s not _all_ the way stupid. Everyone here put his mark to an agreement pasted on the door of the captain’s quarters for all the men to see and refer to anytime, even if most can’t read it. There truly aren’t many rules here; way less than military or merchants, than even privateer ships. It’s why the fuck they’re pirates in the first place.

Only rules here are the ones they all agree on, and that makes them sacred to _everyone_ , not just those at the top of the chain.

The crew won't settle for anything less than blood for this sort of thing, and Red isn't minded to leave em thirsty. Just _touching_ that door is permission to tie the offender by the ankles and throw him overboard to be dragged behind the ship til the fish eat him off, the whole crew cheering it on. The men here have _seen_ what Red and Edge can do, and this room’s Bluebeard status is their insurance against it not happening to them. Crew starts touching the door, maybe Red starts taking fingers and toes when he's peckish. If he's honest, they aren't wrong to worry.

“Your _captain_ asked you a question, _Rags_ ,” Edge says crisply.

Red spares an unfeigned grin of delight for his brother. Edge’s expression doesn’t change, but Red knows Edge appreciates being appreciated anyways. He decides to ignore how Edge doesn’t even kick the deckhand, just wiggles a rousting foot under his squirming form. But hey, it’s a special occasion. Not every day a greenie gets christened by the quartermaster himself.

“Y...yea...yess’r,” Rags snivels. Edge hauls him to his feet, nods sharply at Red, then takes him up on deck and starts hollering up the men to witness the consequences of breaking code.

Red grumbles to himself. His brother’s a goddamned softie; knowing him, he’ll probably tell everyone _why_ too. Not that it won’t be obvious once he’s stripped to the waist for his flogging, but the story along with it will do the opposite of what Rags feared it would. Rags ain’t the only crewman with tits and monthlies; some are still men on shore leave and some ain’t. Red doesn’t keep track because he doesn’t fucking care. But who knows, maybe some of will take on breaking Rags in softer than Red’s likely to.

Red registers the eventual wind-down on his brother’s hollering as he stares at nothing, lost in thought. Doesn't take long before everyone’s ready; they probably heard Edge’s piercing reprimand from belowdecks and were already half-gathered to see an execution anyhow.

Red has only to touch the door to unlock it. He decides to take the opportunity to go in for inspection, since he hasn’t in almost as long as he can get away with. He walks in slowly, peg thumping at a slightly different timbre on the floorboards than his boot, then turns on his heel to plop down in the chair opposite the machine.

His painfully tight exhale sounds how its creaking psychological weight feels. He inhales, hears Rags’s first short cry over the crew’s quiet and the ceaseless rush of water as Edge gets down to business. Edge has the previously-acquired skill of making a beating look much worse than it is. Red would know, since his back’s the one it was honed on. The rest of the crew will depart the spectacle satisfied that Rags’s penance was sufficient, and that their charter remains sacred. Edge, cuntfaced softie that he is, will still probably stop the second he sees a welt bloom that _might_ bleed, despite Red’s insistence on ‘to the juice.’

The machine once again refuses to divulge its secrets. Obviously it has _something_ to do with Red and his brother ending up here, since it fucking _came with_ them. That’s the biggest reason why they never stop moving, don’t dare leave the ship unguarded by both of them for more than a few hours. They can’t afford to let anyone get their hands on this, not even stupid humans who barely know which end of a knife is pointy.

Red rubs his face long and hard, rage burbling up in him yet again. Before he knows it, he’s pulled off one of his gaudy rings and hucked it at the machine. It makes a harsh clang, and the force of his throw pings it right back to him, forcing him to dodge.

“at least captain ahab knew what he was fucking _looking_ for,” he grumbles, defeated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 


	2. Right Neighborly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Dave Matthews Band – Don’t Drink The Water](https://youtu.be/OEFLTLAmoNY)

“you _trust_ this piece a turtle shit?” Red mutters in inland _Mískitu_ picked up from the crew. No flicker of recognition on the opposite side. Red’s fingers twitch to indicate Edge is good to reply.

“Don’t be ridiculous, brother,” Edge replies similarly. “The odds are merely decent that he’ll do what he says he will.”

The other boat’s captain straddles the ugly chair he brought with him on their deck like the petty despot he is, looking an awful lot like a boiled ham and smelling like chicharrón.

Red’s no expert on skin, but he’s pretty sure it’s not supposed to be peeling like that. Tibam has had to stop plenty of greensticks from dabbing tallow all over their faces just like Captain Greaseball obviously did to soothe the sun’s punishment, since it continuously worsens the problem. Apparently no one cares to tell this jackass that, or maybe they’re not allowed to. Tibam says it’s like cooking your face in oil, and goddamn if that ain’t exactly what it looks like. Red already forgot his name, which is Doucet.

The Peeled Man speaketh.

“I have heard rumors that you are a demon,” he says superciliously. “It appears those reports are more plausible than I first gave credence. _Are_ you a demon?”

“sure am,” Red drawls in a satisfied tone, even though he’s actually annoyed and disappointed. He wouldn’t fuck this bag of deep-fried skin flakes with Asgore’s dick and his brother pushing. Oh, well. “got kicked outta hell a while back for unpaid parking tickets.”

“I appear to have left my _Parqués_ board back at my manor,” he replies crisply, rolling with Red’s bullshit. Red can suss this chump’s more of a parlor wit than he is smart in any way that counts, but not the dumbest he’s ever had to deal with, either. “However gaming with demons might appeal, I’m afraid all I have to offer is on the list my coxswain provided.”

Red snickers obnoxiously at _coxswain_ as he tries to place the accent, but there’s too many layering on top of each other. Based on the outfit and the hair, though, he’d say he’s one of the frawn _say_ ones. Not too many of those round these parts; mostly miskitu, creyole, yoruba and espanyuh. His pissants mostly have that same stringy-boiled look, but the little one fanning him’s normal.

He examines Captain Peely again. Too many clothes, fabric too rich for humans in this climate. Skin probably pink as pickled larvae before the sun got ahold of it. He ain’t used to this. Red flicks his eyes at his own attendants besides his brother. He’d requested Sugar Jaques, Tibam who always says no and didn’t come, John and Poxy John. Then he’d asked for Rags on a lark to see how he’s holding up. Sweaty and limping, but otherwise almost as stonefaced as Sugar Jaques. Which is a little better than Red expected, but hey, the other shoe already dropped. Probably some kinda relief, even if it’s not ideal. Red dismisses Rags from his mind, satisfied he’s getting with the program.

“yeah, you showed me yours, now i guess you wanna see mine, eh?” Red purrs, running a begemmed bone thumb casually along the placket of his open shirt to show off the goods like he’s flirting. He definitely isn’t, but if Freddy Kruger over there wants his eyeful of Red as the price of admission, he can have it. His are gelatinous and pale-ringed as a dead herring’s, and seem equally emotive as they comb over Red’s ribcage, spine, and iliac crests.

“why don’t ya give em the list, boss.”

Jaques makes a very quiet noise as Edge steps forward to meet one of the pissants and hand him the deadworked scrap of onionskin, catching Red’s attention hard enough he almost glances over instead of keeping his eyes on the strangers. But Jaques is just laughing at Red, whose pubis is now peeking out after all Red's salacious writhing. Most people don’t notice. It’s just a little jut of bone above the crimson powder horn Red keeps at his crotch like an obscene codpiece that covers nothing and suggests everything. Not like Red gives a shit. He doesn’t have any parts meaty folk consider private, at least not without giving it a little _motivation_ first. Still, Red usually keeps it covered. Sort of. These jackasses across him don’t know shit from shat unless Red decides to get shy about it, so he doesn’t. But yeah, Jaques is yukking it up...well, for _him_.

Thing about Sugar Jaques, that isn’t _his_ name, either. It’s just a phrase his real name sounds like in English, so people started calling him that. He’s thin and rangy, impassive-faced no matter how hard he’s flipping his shit. Which is why Red brings him for meetings, since Red can read his reactions when humans can’t. He doesn’t have to say a word. Having him there’s like a mirror he can use to see behind people’s backs, add Sugar’s reactions to his own little mental dossier.

“I believe we have dallied over numbers to a degree satisfactory to even the _most_ bureaucratically inclined,” Peely pouts, a touch of real impatience finally oozing up through the oil on his burned features. Red’s attention hones in on that like a barracuda on a scrap of hooked intestine, but it’s what he’d expect if piggie here really _was_ tired of flapping his gums around a whole lot of nothing. And that’s what this has been entirely so far. Neither party has actually agreed to jack shit.

“you wanna get right down to brass tacks, i s’pose we c’n do tha’,” Red slurs quiet through his teeth to make the sack of sweat lean forward to hear. He does, but it’s ginger. Red’s betting G to gonorrhea he’s got those sores down there, and not the ugly but painless things Tibam burns off Poxy John’s dick to keep his pisshole clear. The weepy kind humans catch from fucking, those that set em batshit crazy eventually. Add that to the inventory.

“you wanna explain to me why you want us to haul ass all the way over to pearl cays?”

“We need water,” Peelypants murmurs greasily. “It would be convenient to combine our errands, and I cannot imagine such an _illustrious_ company would spurn the chance to mutually stretch our leg.”

Red lets his grin sharpen at the not-quite-there emphasis on the last word. He slowly changes the focus of his eyes, something not perceivable to humans, so he can evaluate Jaques’s sudden stillness. Jacques _knows_ Pearl Cays, used to get all over in his solo skiff before fuckos like Cappy Pork Pie here snatched him up and did what they did. Sugar’s eyelashes flutter briefly like when he’s about to correct someone. Except he doesn’t because this is a meeting, and you don’t talk during meetings.

Welpity welp. Apparently _ain’t_ no clean water on the wee spit of land specified. Red decides he’s going to render this piggie’s suet a little to see how he boils up.

“that so.” Red makes the kind of noise humans make when they suck their teeth; in Red’s case it’s just a suck of air through tightened magic in his skull. “pretty sure there’s no water to be had on that particular turtle turd. maybe you got the wrong address.”

“There is since my associate dug a hidden well there for that very purpose not six months past,” Doucet smarms. “i could possibly allow you to learn how it is accessed, if the trade goes _accordingly_.”

As far as sweetened pots go, it’s not nothing. The sandbar is a pretty pivotal location, and watering there would save a lot of time. Red lets his vision comb his group, but none of them know whether that’s true or not. Red sure as fuck doesn't. But after that convenient explanation, he already knows what Edge is going to have to say about this little shindig now. He’ll want to shitcan the whole operation.

Thing is. Red _really_ wants those “spices”.

Now's one of those pivotal points where it comes down to why Red’s captain and Edge isn’t. From here, if it was up to Edge, it’d be a no. And that’s the problem, cause that’s what _was_ the problem. It would _always_ be a no.

Only three people left on the _BoneRipper_ now who remember the six months Edge _was_ captain. How they’d run so low on water they’d lost a man overboard to thirst delirium. How Tibam had nearly begun a mutiny when all there was to eat was rats. How the watches had stretched so long they’d lost another _two_ men, this time to exhaustion.

Red’s own limitations give him a better innate sense than Edge of what humans can and can’t put up with...outside of Red’s little temper tantrums, of course. More importantly, Red’s willing to _risk_ just enough that they actually can keep this shitshow above the waves, men in the rigging, and Tibam in medicine. Edge is _too_ cautious, running over possibilities in his mind over and over until the problems already happening around him don’t seem as real as stuff that _might_ go wrong. The whole shebang burns up right around their nonexistent ears while he second guesses himself to a stalemate.

Edge makes an overwhelmingly better second than Red ever did, and a worse captain than could be tolerated. The changeover had been an ugly week for sure, but he and his brother mostly managed not to kill each other. They deal with the fallout by never, ever speaking of it. It’s how they deal with most things that can’t be changed.

And sure, Red’s not the kind of person anyone should ever put in charge of _any_ thing, but he’s what the fuck they _have_.

Yessiree, now’s one of those _captain_ times. Red makes his decision, and the whole crew’s going to have to abide by it. He sighs, pretends to suck his teeth some more. His mouth’s dry as a bone.

“fine. tomorrow, afternoon watch. be there or be square.”

“I’m sure that will be-”

“no straight-across. boats at opposite ends.” Red reminds himself to savor the sour look his use of ‘boats’ earns later. “we inspect on the beach at the same time. i want a pretty lil chorus line of your people waiting for me, no less or more than five, knives only. no funny business, or i might get tetchy with em.”

Peely’s pout might be more effective if Red wasn’t trying not to laugh, watching the stiff sea breeze tugging at an actual thin flap of skin hanging from the end of his stupid-looking nose.

“Are you suggesting that _I_ \--” Peely chokes on outrage shallower than his scow’s keel. Overstuffed doublet with nothing inside except hot air and being used to controlling what other people are allowed to say. “I’m no _pirate_!”

Yeah. No shit, Sherlock. Pirates actually have some fucking standards.

“you picked the venue. i got my own terms.” Red lets his eyes gutter out on purpose, tilts his skull so his depraved grin glints in the sun. “you decide you don’t _like_ those terms… no deal, and no skin off _my_ nose. don’t think you c’d say the same.”

He brings his eyes back so he can more effectively watch Peely turn even more purple. This half-plucked, scabby-dick, parboiled bantam rooster thinks he’s gonna crack wise about Red’s _leg_? Fuck that shit.

“take it or leave it.”

In the end, he takes it.

The degree to which he visibly does not _like_ it is what makes Red decide he’s gonna show up after all.

The captain and pissants from the Ding Dong Ditch or whatever the hell that scow across is called fluff and fluster themselves up, getting ready to leave. Red sighs internally at his brother’s tight expression, primed for explosion. Classic. Talks it up, get himself all excited for the trade, then decides to shitcan the whole operation based on one wibbly point about why they want the _BoneRipper_ at that sandbar.

Thing is, that whole “not a pirate” cheese line just shores up the theory the shit the other captain’s full of probably isn’t anything Red and Edge have to worry about, at least not right now. Sure, he’s hiding a whole library of ulterior motives. Probably got some shady shit going on at Pearl Cays that’d make Fluffybuns himself catch a terminal case of erectile dysfunction. Red would be more suspicious if he didn’t. Nearly everyone sailing with more than a single mast around these parts doesn’t want anyone to know what they’re _actually_ up to. Red sure as fuck doesn’t.

Yeah, it could be an ambush. _Anything_ could be. Or it could be this dumbass is dumping off kippers, wood stock, sailcloth and spices, mostly in exchange for the tight, space-saving rolls of useless fancy cloth the _BoneRipper_ ’s gills-deep in at the moment because he’s making room for something on the wind, and Red doesn’t much care what.

Easy for Edge to forget their own hold’s full of shit they can’t use, and hurting bad for shit they _need_. No one around here’s using brocaded velvet for anything but head wipes, and Flaky Doucet’s learning firsthand _why_ , if he doesn’t stroke out first. And sure, Red would have put higher value on the cloth if he ever intended to go within a hundred leagues of a place he could actually fucking sell it. Captain Peely can take it home and get his ship’s weight in silver for it.

The second their boat’s lowered, Red tries to head Edge off at the pass.

“i don’t wanna fucking hear it,” Red growls under his breath, fingers twitching out _He doesn’t like_ _our_ _terms_ in Hands, tucked sidelong into his cape where only Edge can see. Even their crew don’t know they can talk that way much less what they said, and they both prefer to keep it that way. Crew ain’t _family_.

Red primes for an explosion anyhow, because while Red’s temper is legendary, Edge’s is still something to write home about. And this is getting awfully close to the bone for Edge. Red does his best not to rub the differential in his face, but Edge ain’t exactly doing his best to prevent Red from _making_ him. And he will if he has to. Sucks the men have to be here for their little difference of opinion, but it is what it is.

There’s a tense moment; nobody moves.

But as soon as the other ship’s dingy is out of sight, Edge turns on a wordless heel and stomps away to go play with his dolls or whatever, calm his tits on his own time. Red sighs, not exactly relieved but glad he’ll save the argument for later if there’s going to be one. Everyone takes that as their cue to wander off to attend their own business. Which for everyone not on watch is pretty much whatever the fuck they want.

None will meet Red’s eyes, which is a positive since it means they’re on his side this time, for the most part. Edge is liked, Red isn’t, so they feel guilty for siding with Red. Good. He ain’t here to be best friends, he’s here to get shit done. These dogs all know there’s no way for them to sell the cloth for even half its value, not for the likes of them. This trade is optimal usage. Or who knows, maybe they all just have diarrhea after staring at Doucet’s face for that long and are racing to get to the head first so they don’t have to stick their ass out a porthole.

All Red knows for a fact is that he’s tired, and not the kind of tired sleep can cure anymore. Edge’s snit has soured his mood, and that bullshit took all morning and half the afternoon watch already. He notes Rags is shaky, looking yellow-green around the mouth as he heads below, so Red kills some time prancing around the deck doing his stupid captain shtick while Rags takes care of business. That’s not gonna lube Red’s entrance much, but not much could at this point.

Red might as well get it over with and take _his_ medicine, too.

After a bit to let it stew, he heads belowdecks. He sets boot and peg on one the many well-worn paths he walks on this floating, crowded thimble full of bitchy eccentrics Red has to keep from killing each other. It’s one of the more popular destinations, and the floor shows it. Gotta get someone in with a sanding rock soon, he’s surprised his bro didn’t already snip someone’s balls for it. He doesn’t spend nearly as much time in here as the human crewmen do, but he makes it a point to keep his visits regular. And he’s been avoiding this one.

Tibam’s little space is a little more sacred than most, and he spends most of his time in here yelling at his dick and doing weird shit to plants. Or the chickens he somehow manages to keep alive and mostly sane in a strange bulwark of cages that can be brought to deck on decent weather days.

But Red doesn’t even have a chance to take a breath before Tibam’s roaring at him.

“HOOWHAT I _TELL_ YOU BOUT THE LEGS?? HOOYOU DON’ FUCK UP THE _LEGS_ , YOU _MOLDY_ TURTLE’S _PIZZLE_!!”

The chickens join in the scolding, since they get upset whenever Tibam gets his panties in a bunch. Yeah, okay, he’s still pissed about Rags. Who of course just left, probably to sleep off whatever Tibam just gave him for his barking shin. Red knows it’s best to get it out of the way all at once, don’t let Tibam sit eggbound long enough to stew up more resentment than Red can effectively dissipate with his charming wiles.

Red just grins so his gemmed tooth glints, saunter-stumps on in and sits pinup-style on a barrel. He hopes Edge kept the medicine news behind that smug-ass brick his brother calls a face, because Tibam always gets cranky when Red decides to take a little discipline initiative. Gets cranky when he’s low on supplies, too, and Red’s gotta butter him back up somehow.

“aww, c’mon, doc. you know stumpy just gets jealous sometimes.” He does a flirtatious little kick-pattern with his boot and peg, “accidentally” hitting another barrel and overturning a paper cone full of some kinda seeds. Tibam can’t exactly doctor non humans, but he _did_ make Red’s prosthetic. Bitches real hard about what Red did to it, says the gilding and shit glued on threw the “perfect” balance off. Red found out he was right, then kept it that way out of spite. He can correct for it. Mostly. Not like Red’s gonna die from a little wobble here and there. Mostly.

“Hyou crack his fucking leg, maybe _I_ crack your stupid fucking _skull_ ,” Tibam threatens emptily.

“ _tibia_ honest, the ghost of my poor lost fibula gets _real_ hungry for legbones sometimes.” Red sucks air through magic in his skull, makes that loud kissy noise his brother hates. “you saying these old bones can’t thirst for vengeance?”

“On my _last_ fucking patience with this shit,” Tibam pouts, unrelenting. “ _Edge_ does the whippings. Hoo _you_ breaking the _rules_ , you paint-up dandy turkey’s neck.”

Fuck. Teebz is playing hardball now. Folks must really be sweet on Rags or some shit, probably best to remember other peoples’ favorites besides his own. Maybe if Red was a different sort of person, he’d regret losing his temper. Instead, he just thinks quickly.

“…tell you what, sweetheart. seems i‘m feeling a lil peckish.”

Tibam’s expression turns assessing. No mercy. Red keeps his grin as bright as he can manage.

“yeah, that’s right. lunch is on you today. i’ll be your guinea pig for....” Red reads that tattooed expression carefully, keeps his sigh internal. Apparently Red really _did_ crack Rags’s leg. Whoopsie doodle. “ _three_ rounds. ah-ah-ahh—more than fair, ‘specially after them fish egg nacatamales last time. i’d rather eat a fuckin dog turd, least that’d have some moisture.”

Red’s got plenty of practice eating the unpalatable. Tibam loves nothing more than subjecting Red to his theoretically edible experiments, since most of them can’t actually kill him. If he’s honest...makes Red kinda nostalgic for old times, before his little bro got too important in the Guard to cook for fun anymore. Another skill Red found use for in this messed up bizarro world he never chose to come to. It ain’t fair, but it’s not like he asked to be born in the first place, either.

Tibam simpers gamely, funny as hell with all those face marks he’s got. Makes him a lot more fun to watch than most humans, that’s for sure. “At least you remember the name right this time.”

Red’s smile is dangerously close to genuine. “yeah? i must be tired or something.”

The look Tibam shoots him as he gets his cooking shit out is mostly sympathy, although he’d never admit it. It annoys him he can’t do the kind of stuff to boost the skeletons’ verve like he does with the men. Edge lets Tibam have fire in here, since he needs it for some of his doctoring business. Tibam pushes it, but it's the only place it’s allowed besides the galley and a few candle slots belowdecks at night. Still more than most ships, since Edge and Red can handle fire problems without too much fuss as long as somebody hollers.

“I ever tell you the time I kill my brother-in-law?” Tibam starts up as he tosses dried chiles in hissing oil.

“only so many times i wanna add your nuts to that pickle firkin of em you got under the table,” Red lies. He’s never actually heard this one.

“Okay, so. This shitbrain. My town makes him go-between with Mayangna on the inside part past the river, they know him when he comes. For a long time my stupid dog chase peccary in _there_ instead of to me. I don’t go after because they see me running up with my gun, kill me first, hey. No one can blame them.”

“guess not,” Red agrees easily enough, watching Tibam throw in some chicha-preserved barrel pork with it. Maybe this won’t be as bad as most of the shit he chokes down to keep the peace.

“Every time I send this shitbrain to get my share later, but he always coming back say they don’t catch nothing. Nobody kills it. I think at first these Mayangna can’t tell which end of machete is point, but it _keep_ happening. Even when one time I see the dogs got the peccary tore up, might die on its own if no one kills it.”

“mmhm.” Tibam adds some green shit and a pale powder, and Red internally chides himself for hoping. “sounds to me like the neighbors got greedy-guts about it, kept both shares.”

Tibam laughs wickedly and points hard at Red, grinning as he jabs his finger at him.

“Ah-ah! This is the right way of thinking. And this is what _I’m_ thinking, so I decide and go see for myself.” He turns back to his cooking, then widens the portcover to let some of the surprisingly decent-smelling miasma filling his office out before continuing.

“So I follow shitbrain secretly, stay quiet and listen. So you know how surprised I am to see these Mayangna go right ahead and _giving_ shitbrain my half share, hmm?”

“oh shit,” Red chuckles. “he kept it for himself, slick motherfucker.”

Tibam’s finishing up, a splash of chicha to boil off with a big, hissing cloud. “You say _mother_ fucker, but he fucking my sister! And she lucky I don’t kill _her_ right with _,_ since this _perra_ fucking eating it too!! But no, I just shave her bitch head and yell, because I’m stupid to love her anyways.” Red knows how that goes.

“well, goddamn. so, this story got a point?” Red asks right on cue.

Tibam’s grin doesn’t budge.

“Yes,” he reports, dumping the shit in a bowl with a flourish. “Moral of this story is everyone I talk about now. Even Mayangna assholes, all _fucking_ dead because some fishbelly piss-bladders like the one you play _Parqués_ with today kill them all before I ever meet your stupid devil ass,” he says, then hands Red his heaping bowl. “Even the babies.”

Even _his_ babies, he means and doesn’t say. Red just takes the bowl with a polite nod. All Tibam’s stories have the same moral, and he’ll hear it as many times as he has to. Fishbelly piss-bladders are who left the jagged ridge of scar tissue through Tibam’s midline and left him half in the river to bleed out along with the rest. His doctoring saved himself, and that’s about all he managed. Just that is an unshakeable testament to his skill. It’s why Red snapped him right up at their first docking, muttering and crazy off the street right along with his cart of "worthless" plants. A healed gut wound like that’s a fact, and says more than any amount of nattering on about ghosts can dissuade.

Red diddles around in the steaming bowl with his fingers, trying to decide which chunk looks least objectionable, then changes tactics. He takes one of each kind of piece tucks a big wad between his teeth quick, ready to swallow em whole before the taste has a chance to kick in. Then he goes still.

An achingly familiar sour heat fills Red’s mouth, and he actually takes a chew or three to drag it out. Takes another bite, real quiet and staring down into the bowl. Doesn’t _look_ like it, but he knows this taste, can’t play it off. But it doesn’t matter. Just a little of his own flavor dripping in to sweeten the pot.

“that powder you put in here called anything special?” he rasps hoarsely, halfway done already. Tibam makes a soft sound before speaking.

“They fishbelly name is ‘mout-ardent,’ when they mix the seed powder with vinegar and cook.”

“mustard,” Red whispers into his bowl.

“Mean fire and grapes-must, yes. Plant is name...black cabbage? That’s the greens I give you with it, same plant.”

Red just stays still a minute. Then he finishes slow. Takes what he’s been given, just like his whole life. Once it’s gone, he looks up and shares the moment.

“maybe i could stand to choke it down once in a while.” He runs his tongue along the inside of his teeth, still present and barking hard at the lingering heat of it. “see if my sourpuss bro likes it, maybe. sweeten his yap after his lil pout’s over with.”

“Okay,” Tibam says, face oddly soft. “Later. I think I don’t feel like cooking more today.”

Red looks away, wipes his mug on his lace before he catches feelings.

“lazy shit,” Red mutters. “you jus’ wanna quit while you’re ahead.”

He hands the dirty bowl back when Tibam shrugs, sucking his fingers as he heaves himself back up on his boot-and-peg. He makes to leave, then remembers why he was actually here in the first place. He turns back.

“hey. ‘bout rags.”

Tibam waits silently, which is promising.

“double rum after watch for as long as you think he needs, okay? smoke, too, if he wants it. much as you think.”

Tibam sighs, rubs his sweaty, tattooed face. “Rum makes blood inside the skin, and we’re low on smoke. Poppy, too. Men hurting can’t sleep, can’t _work_. Can’t sail your stupid fucking _boat_ , Red.”

Red grins. No bones about it, this one’s sincere.

“got a line on near-full resupply for ya, teebz. so why don’tcha light rags right on up, hmm?”

“Fuck you say.” Tibam’s features go blank with treacherous hope.

“can’t promise til the deal’s done, but yeah.”

“Hoo _you_ FUCKING don’t TELL ME _THIS_ first??”

Red rasps scarred fingers under his broad chin sheepishly, basking in Tibam’s bluster.

“hey, i asked ya to come up w’me. maybe you actually _will_ next time.” He won’t, but that’s okay. “we’re lucky they don’t know what they got, huh? just one brick o’ tar since they know what that’s worth, but most of the rest except those, uh. seeds. whatever. they didn’t have none a those.”

“These I don’t really need,” he admits, surprising Red. He indicates a row of containers under the porthole that weren’t there the last time Red visited. “Just want to try out this things here, see if they grow in dirt like I put.”

Ain’t no sandy island dirt in there, either. Dirt from the coast proper, where Tibam’s from. Red watched his nutty professor here dig it up past the sand himself last time they had to land there, Sugar Jaques working twice as fast as lightning to patch the hole a stray shot put in their hull.

Red takes a deep breath, fake captain’s grin returning after its restful break from being glued to his face.

“nothin’ _grows_ on the _boneripper_ cept jack, shit, and the mold on your dick, teebz.”

Red knocks on the doorframe twice, then leaves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 


	3. Babies and Bathwater

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Loreena McKennitt – The Bonny Swans](https://youtu.be/XgM72_CNuSI)

Red groans in absent relief as the last strap comes free.

His fancy, stupid prosthetic hits the floor with a thump, and his equally heavy boot follows it. If there’s a real emergency he can get it back on pretty quick, but _that’s_ not fucking happening for anything less than active combat on their decks. He is _done_ for the day. Well, except for whatever confrontation he ends up having with his brother, and he doesn’t need legs for a bitchfest. Worse comes to worse, he’ll just throw stuff at him til he leaves like usual. Fucker barely sleeps anyhow, and he can do that in a hammock if he wants to start his shit with Red tonight.

He is _not_ in the fucking mood.

Red rubs the terminating knob of his femur, wincing. Nothing’s actively leaking, so he’ll call it a good day. He takes off the straps and pouches and belt, a few of the biggest jewelry items and dumps em in a hinged box bolted to the wall. Rubbing his face, he wonders again why he wears so much shit all the time, then remembers it’s funny. He huffs dispiritedly, unlatches his cape and lets it fall back on the bed, then wads it up for its second purpose as a pillow. He wraps the fur inside like batting, plops his skull down and stretches out to brood for a bit.

There’s a knock before he even gets started; he recognizes Sugar Jaques’s pattern.

“in!” he barks quickly.

The rangy, awkward human enters, shuts the wooden door behind him and makes himself right at home on Edge’s bunk. Pulls his legs up and sits crosslegged, dirty feet and all. Makes Red grin fondly.

“what’s the vibe, sugar?” Red drawls, starfishing out comfortably. He’s ready to wait a while, let Jaques get his bearings. This time seems like he’s already got em, smirking (well, smirking for _him_ ) at Red’s crotch to remind him of the unintentional peep show from earlier. Whatever. “ya think this asshole’s gonna try it?”

“He does not care what he does,” Jaques states succinctly in those clipped, musical tones, “because others do not exist for him. They are not people. There is nothing he will not do if he sees advantage in it.”

Well, that’s not uncommon, especially for those types. The ones all over the place where Red started this shitshow, part of why he had to get him and his brother the fuck out of Dodge.

“think he really dug a well?”

Jaques’s shrug is worthy of Red himself. Makes his grin broaden, that’s for sure.

“There is no way to tell. No way to know what he will do, not that type of man. He is...what do they say?” That mysterious little smile tugs at Jaques’s mouth without actually forming. “A monster.”

Red chuckles, delighted.

“aww, you always know jus’ how ta cheer me up,” Red sighs. “guess i won’t have my bro toss ya in the drink _today_ , at least.” Jaques’s eyes just narrow the millimeter or so that indicates smugness.

Okay, so. Most of the crew knows or catches on pretty quick that Sugar Jaques is a favorite. Makes sense considering he’s been with them the entire time, and he’s responsible for keeping the boat above the waves right after Red and Edge. He just uses wood, metal, rocks, and a bunch of other more esoteric shit to do it.

He’s the ship’s carpenter, but as far as Red’s concerned that’s another word for magic. Red always pays close attention to him, but more often he just asks Jaques what his gut says about people, since he won’t offer. Red’s more perceptive, but Jacques knows more about humans, and what he says has nothing to do with preserving Red’s opinions of him. He doesn’t kiss his ass, not like anyone here ever does. But Jaques can’t even see the fronts people put up, says what he thinks instead of what he’s supposed to, can’t tell how they want him to react to their bullshit. So he just doesn’t react at all, keeps his own counsel, barely talks to anyone except his weird muttering at the ship itself. And sometimes, at Red.

Half of the crew that imagine Red _can_ fuck at all figure he’s fucking Sugar Jaques, but nah. Red just wishes he was. Despite the tragic lack of tupping, he has to admit Jacques could get all sorts of favors out of him. Red can’t think of the last time he so much as said boo to him much less told him no, come to think of it. But that’s just because Sugar Jaques automatically does his job better than anyone else could, never complains even when he probably should, and also plain doesn’t fucking _want_ anything. Including sex, with Red or anyone else.

Red asks some questions about how the ship’s doing, and pretends to listen attentively to the convoluted explanations that follow. Red doesn’t know what half this crap even means, but the important thing is Sugar Jaques does. Once the space between his words stretches into minutes, Red lets him know about the prospective wood and metal stock in trade tomorrow. That almost-smile that never shows his teeth says that Red did good by him. They’re done; been done for a while now, but Jaques still lingers. Red’s soul flutters, but he swallows it down. His whisper is real quiet.

“you need something, sugar?”

Sugar Jaques keeps that smug almost-smile as he stands. Red’s breath catches in disappointment he walks by...no, he swings back and comes to sit on the floor next to the bed. Shit. Red manages to flip on his front just in time, cause his magic’s trained to respond at this point. He hides it cause that’s the rules, and Red’s not about to break them. He shrugs half out of his open shirt, then casually dangles his arm over the side of his bunk and waits.

This hand’s covered in rings and bracelets because it isn’t his business hand, only pops off once in a while to shoot the ridiculous flintlock pistol he keeps at his belt when he gets in a certain mood. Left’s his knife hand when he needs to make a meatbag’s guts hit the boards, but mostly it’s for waving around to poke a boat full of holes with his bones, send a blaster through the rigging, or set some turd’s hair on fire. He doesn’t _have_ to wave his hand around to do it, but it helps, so he keeps his dominant hand clear.

For his own reasons, Sugar Jacques prefers the right.

Might have something to do with a hand he fished out of a bait bucket a while back. Ever since then, he seems more interested in Red than he is in most animate objects.

Red holds his breath carefully when those slim brown fingers touch his. He watches his rings get unhurriedly removed and set on the bed along with his bracelets, ignoring his magic straining his pants. He doesn’t hump the mattress either, though he wants to.

All Jaques ever does is touch his hand, but it’s the _way_ he does it. The pads of his fingers pinching and massaging each tiny bone one by one; hell, if this is the kind of attention to detail he shows the _BoneRipper_ , Red’s jealous as a motherfucker.

The drag of silky skin over bone has him dizzy with the overwhelming experience of actually being touched, even if it’s by a human that could end him with a careless slap. Who knows, maybe that’s part of it. Red doesn’t give a fuck, just does his best to keep his breathing steady as he savors the tender give of flesh testing the sharp points at the tips of each phalanx.

Then Jaques brings Red’s hand up close to his face, starts...smelling it, maybe? Red smothers a choking sound, cause he’s never done that before. Then the slick pink tip of his tongue appears, and Red’s skull swims as it glides over his lips to moisten them. If Jaques _had_ an expression, it’d be speculative. Shit. He must be _really_ happy about that wood.

“wait,” Red jerks out breathily, "i can’t-”

“Don’t look at me,” he interrupts, quiet and musical. Sugar Jaques doesn’t look at him either, doesn’t lose that barely-there, mysterious smile.

Red turns his face into the mattress. He does his best to smother his grunt when wet heat encloses the sharp tips of his first two fingers, but the hot huff of breath on the back of his hand is either amused...or something else. He doesn’t know, because he’s being good and not looking. All he knows is how soft and pliant the inside of Jaques’s mouth is, how it investigates just like his fingers, how teeth click against hardness and scrape gently til they catch the raised thread of a tiny scar.

Red bites down quick on a wad of blanket as that slick tongue pushes bluntly between fingers, spreading them wide before retreating. Another huff of breath on his knuckles; apparently Red had the right reaction because Jaques’s lips tighten and he does it again. Starts tonguefucking the space between his fingers, the saucy little bastard.

Red chews right through his favorite fucking blanket silently imagining that tongue sliding in somewhere else nice and tight, but nothing can muffle the involuntary rattle of his bones as the pleasure of it courses through him. It’s like wind through bare trees; an inherently inhuman sort of noise. Turns out that _seriously_ works for Jaques.

Jaques’s surprised moan around his fingers at the sound Red’s body makes does Red right in. He tries to keep the sob he makes when he comes in his pants behind his teeth, but it squeaks out hotly into his makeshift gag as his pelvis jerks hard, then one more time. It startles Jacques, but dammit, Red _warned_ him.

He stops what he’s doing immediately, but Red doesn’t move or make another sound, stays right where he is and pretends to be an object. Must have been the right call, since Jaques stays to wipe Red’s fingers dry with soft cloth before he leaves. Done now, but not upset at least. Red manages to wait until the door shuts and latches behind him before desperately shoving that hand in his own mouth, his business hand down through the hot mess already in his pants.

Red doesn’t think about anything except wet heat wrapped around scarred bones for quite a while, mind blissfully empty until he rattles and sobs a few more times.

Eventually, he’s done. Wants to fall asleep, but he doesn’t. Might serve Edge right having to share his den with an unconscious, pants-full-of-jizz Red… but Red doesn’t fancy having to soak glued-on leggies off his bones later, either. Still, he lies there a bit. Lets his mind putter where it will, since this is the closest thing he’s had to rest in…a while.

He doesn’t know what the fuck to call what just happened, but luckily he doesn’t need to call it anything. All that matters is they both like it, and it’s been going on for a while now. Ever since a few months after Red solved Jaques’s problem without him ever have to ask or tell anyone, a hand went missing from a bucket, and he found out Jaques bought a bead reamer and some copper wire from the slops chests.

Red would never ask him why he kept it or what he does with it, any more than Red would tell Jacques about what he does after he leaves. They both pretty much figure. All he knows is Jaques derives some kind of gratification from what they do, and the rest’s none of his fucking business.

Otherwise, he doesn’t think about it.

Red finally grumbles to himself, heaves up with a hand on the bed and totters over to the lidded freshwater barrel Edge insists on keeping in here at all times. Red can’t blame him. He’s met himself. Then he bends over and yanks the basin out of its hideyhole, crankily recalling when he could do it with his missing toes while balancing on the other foot.

Red fills the basin and throws his pants in there, then hunkers down with one hand on the bed for balance. He makes an absent little hiss as leftie takes some weight, but he’s used to it. Red dunks his hand and swirls his cauldron of jizz-and-pants soup, then uses leggies and pelvis to wash each other. He wrings the pants and sets them aside, hauls back upright and braces his short leg on his bunk, then snatches up the heavy basin. It’s much too wide to fit out the porthole, but with a practiced motion anyone on board could duplicate, he circles the basin back for momentum, then tosses the dirty water forward and unerringly out the window.

When he refills it, he adds a little splash of plant crap Tibam makes. It’s a kind of herbal cleanser that doesn’t need rinsing, better than the harsh lye shit they use topside on laundry days. Red calls it “skeleton douche” to make Edge’s face twitch, and it doesn’t burn even when he’s raw. Red snickers and sets his chin on his forearm, plops down to dunk his ass in the bowl and splash around a little. He sighs and fingers out his sacral foramina, hoping once Edge calms down and actually fucking _thinks_ \--

Red growls at the faint skittering on the other side of the door.

“habout you hold yer fucking horses, huh?” he barks.

Red groans and looks at the ceiling as the skittering increases. He gives the pants another cursory swirl, squeezes the drips and uses them to wipe down his legs, hissing as he dabs his stump. He’s used to it. He gets rid of the water, looks around for something else to put on. The first thing he grabs is a spare shirt, so he just ties it around his waist. He hangs the pants by the open window to dry as the skittering reaches a crescendo.

Red scrambles around with an exasperated grunt, opens the door and pushes it with a precariously leaning lurch into the enclosure opposite that holds it in place as the ship heaves over the waves. The curtain in front of the door proper theoretically keeps it private even when they’re both coming and going. But privacy on this ship is mostly a joke, and here comes ten pounds of mangy proof shooting right through.

“yeah, i’m done, you lil shit. what, you got some kinda kitty senses that let ya know whenever ‘m jacking it?”

The fluffy, whitish-grey cat that always ends up in here the fucking second Red opens the door yaps its rusty meow at him.

“yeah, s’what i thought,” Red grunts peevishly, then flops down on Edge’s bunk before the cat can get up there. He just does it to be a dick, preempt whatever spot the cat was _going_ to head for. Can’t let the overgrown rat think it’s got the run of Edge’s bed as well as Red’s ship.

Red spreads his arms and leg to take up more room, but the fuzzy little fucker jumps up and whuffles right into Red’s ribcage, batting at a few strings of pearls that dangle down inside. Then it does that thing where it frantically rubs its cheeks on the tips of his floating ribs, the click of its fang teeth against bone making Red snort as it gets more enthusiastic about it. Fuckin’ weirdo.

Doesn’t exactly tickle, but Red finds himself chuckling anyhow. He puts a hand on the cat’s back, strokes from shoulders to tail. Its fur is clean and nice, not matted like his cape’s trim. Feels soft and alive, even as he wiggles his hand free of a few puffs of shed. He feels that vibration thing start under his fingers as he watches the cat back out, then grunts as hind claws step right in his pelvis. He winces as it scrabbles for purchase on his sacrum, but Red just yanks his makeshift shirt-skirt under it for padding as it tries to pick up one of his necklaces with its paw and fails hilariously several times in a row. The cat continues to ignore Red’s caresses as it ducks down to swat and nibble at a few more from the inside, like it’s trying to pick the best one.

“ohhh, you think those are my intestines, huh? you gonna play a lil tune on my catgut?”

“Careful, brother. That was dangerously close to being _funny_.”

Red grabs the cat and tosses it gently down where his leg isn’t; it lets out an offended yowl and takes a swipe at his good leg. He pushes it away with his foot even more gently than Edge did to Rags the other day, but Edge’s expression crumples into horrified offense anyhow. He takes the single long step this closet takes for him to cross, and scoops the cat up to cradle protectively.

Edge ignores the pants hanging to dry by the little porthole of their room, crooning nauseatingly at the fleabag in his arms. His brother probably knows why they needed washing, but he doesn’t say anything. Not like he’s gonna complain about Red taking initiative to clean something for a fucking change, anyhow.

“Don’t mistreat the animals, brother,” Edge says crisply, grimacing at the floor and pushing the basin back in its slot with his foot. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he adds in a gruff mutter, one handedly throwing Red’s sweated-on (and possibly jizzed-on; oops) shirt back in the pile, shoving the abandoned peg and boot in their slot, et fucking cetera.

“dunno why you _got_ all these fucking _animals_ here in the first place, this ain't a fucking _ark_ ,” Red gripes, eager to argue about something that isn’t what they’re really gonna argue about. This one’s well worn and comfortable, and Edge obligingly takes the bait as he picks up their little cubby, bitching at all the rings and shit Red left in the bed. Well, Sugar Jaques left em in the first place, but he’s not about to say that.

Edge finally yanks off his own boots and puts them wherever they go, then grabs a rafter, slaps a stupidly long foot up on his bunk and executes a complex maneuver that lands him on the mattress between Red and the wall, cat and all. He stops his yammering at Red and lies back to pet the cat, scratching its cheeks and chin with the tips of his gloved fingers, simpering like a sap about what a good little rat-eater it is or whatever.

The cat eyeballs Red smugly, purring so loud he can hear it over the never ending whoosh and creak of the ship. Which is fucking deafening all of a sudden. Some worthless scrap of mange’s happy noises are less than a shitsplat next to Red’s monotonous reality, the ceaseless noise of boats in the ocean swallowing every drop of pointless happiness right up in its void.

“fuck you,” he tells it. “gonna toss you out with the washwater next time, once i take bets on how long ya last.” The cat doesn’t care, since it can’t speak Spanish. Red switches to English. “I hope our next greenstick turns out to be a closet catfucker.” Then he reaches out and shoves Edge’s arm, making him almost poke the cat in the eye since he wasn’t expecting it.

Mistake. His brother goes dangerously still, doesn’t even look over at him.

“Sans,” Edge says, careful and tight. Nothing comes after that.

Red looks away, face heating. Now he can feel Edge staring at him. Red starts to get up, but Edge leans up on an elbow, and the cat slides down back onto Red’s ribcage with an unconcerned little grunt. Edge sighs laboriously and grabs Red by the scruff, reaching for his makeshift pelvis-covering. Red jerks away from his brother’s hand, but Edge ignores that, too.

“aww, c’mon, don’t...” Edge doesn’t even grace him with a cocked browbone as he nips a gloved fingertip and slides it off. He lets it fall, then reaches down and rummages right up under the shirt Red’s wearing over his pelvis, unconcerned with Red’s halfassed struggling, nor the long-suffering cat surfing on Red’s heaving ribcage.

“c’m _on_ , boss, i’m _used_ to it...”

He sighs in defeated relief as his brother encloses the terminating knob of his femur in his gentle, inescapable grasp. The warmth of his healing instantly begins soothing out the near-constant ache Red shoves in the background all day. It’s not even a fucking injury, just the unaccustomed spot bearing his weight. That part of Red’s body isn’t made for that kinda thing. It’s the nonexistence of shock absorption, too, and Red using it to lean on so he can kick shit around, and the awkward way he has to climb and jump and stretch cause he’s already fucking _short_ , and the friction sores in the bone that never really heal completely from rubbing against the prosthetic all day even with the padding, and.…

Red’s deep breath in shakes, but he sighs it out steady as he can. The cat has the fucking gall to stay right where it is, just sets its chin down on its paws and blinks slow at him. It doesn’t flinch when his hand darts out to wipe his sweaty skull on Edge’s blanket, and Edge doesn’t even bitch at him for it. Pisses Red right the fuck off, even the cat acting like Red’s some kinda swooning princess crying over a scabby knee.

He’s _used_ to it, goddammit.

“why don’t you just get on with whatever fuckery you’re lubing me up for, paps,” Red drones at the ceiling. He realizes he’s petting the cat again and stops.

“No fuckery, brother. I merely wish to know how, precisely, you plan to get us out of whatever trap that boiled pig is setting for us on that sandbar.” Red can hear the commas. Yeah, sure, that voice is iron. Rusty as fuck from all that sea air. Brittle.

“eh, you know me, pap,” Red says, dredging up an asshole’s smirk from some not already drained reserve. “planning’s more your deal. i just play it by ear.”

“You’re going to get us all killed,” Papyrus says flatly.

“i know,” jerks out of Red before he manages to bite it back, and Edge gapes down at him. The healing stops, but he doesn’t let it go. Welp. Turns out Red can’t let it go this time, either. “you don’t think i fucking _know?_ ” Red continues in a strange whisper, despair creeping in to fill him as it pushes out unwise words. “it’s just a matter of time, but there ain’t no other _choice_.” Red stares at the wall. “we need that shit, and we need it now. ain’t no perfect opportunities out here, not anything better than what’s already on our plate. we won’t get another chance ta unload that brocade.”

His brother’s expression flickers in his peripheral vision, but Red can’t bring himself to look as he speaks.

“If the choice is between die now and die later, the right choice is always to die la--”

“habout you don’ fucking pawn my _own_ bullshit off on me like it ever _meant_ anything,” Red interrupts bitterly. “i don’t wanna hear it.”

Because this is really the same choice Red made over and over when Edge was just a babybones, when he was _Papy_ , and Red was faced with either stealing enough food to keep them both alive for another week and maybe Red getting whipped to death right now, versus them both dying together in a week. Of course he told that brazen, antsy kid to wait and see, give Red a chance to “find” something. To “figure something out.” It was the only way to keep Edge from busting through shop windows like a goddamn supervillain from the comics Red fished out of the dump for him so he could redistribute the goddamn wealth or whatever.

Right on cue, Edge starts, “We could wait an s-”

“ain’t no more _wait and see_ when ya can’t _wait_ _anymore_!” Red roars hard enough to break his voice, then pretends to rub his forehead with his shaky palm to cover his sockets. The stupid fucking cat just purrs louder. Red ain’t the only one who’s used to shit.

“Sa-”

“can’t see what’s in front a your _fucking_ _face_ , ya dicknuckle _moron_!” Red tries to yell, not pretending to rub anymore. But his voice goes thick and weak, cracked and scarred. Just like Red. “fuckin worthless trog, i shoulda jus’ left ya...” His voice strangles away into jerky breaths and silence.

This is his own fault for lying to a little kid who didn’t know any better, Red’s fault Edge is how he is now. Jumps into a shitshow before he fucking thinks, then too scared to make a move when he _has_ to. Edge is always convinced there’ll be some last-minute miracle, and that’s Red’s fault, too.

The only miracles in Edge’s life were the ones Red pried out of the world’s jaws offscreen, then hid his bloody fingers and told him they got lucky. Maybe Edge still doesn’t realize Red’s midnight shortcuts, dirty dealings, tactful removals and permanent silencings are the _only_ goddamn thing that saved them both. That it’s not even a lie at the core, it’s luck more than anything that kept Edge from starving alone behind whatever dumpster Red stashed him by, _wait_ ing to _see_ when his brother would be back for him like he promised.

Even now they’re both grown, Red’s the still the one who actually has to take all the risks. Well, Red’s not about to spill those ancient, rotten-ass beans. Let Edge hate him, at least...least he’ll respect him that way, or maybe… Red digs his fingers hard into bone, grits his teeth til they creak. He’s tired, he’s so fucking _tired_ of this.

“shoulda left your s-stupid ass in a dumpster,” Red whines jerkily, hating himself more than his brother ever could. “i shoulda l-left you with the rest of the-”

Red gasps wetly in surprise, the cat yowling and jumping away as Edge crushes Red to his chest. Edge’s teeth hit Red’s skull with a clack, then again.

“But you _didn’t_ ,” he whispers hoarsely. “You didn’t leave me, not once. _Never_.” Red can feel a deep tremble start somewhere inside his brother’s padded body. Red mewls and tries to wriggle away, can’t bear to hear what’s next. But Edge doesn’t let him, palms the back of his skull and grips his lower spine with the other inescapable hand. Red gives a final lurch and tries to kick him; it would have been a good one if he hadn’t forgot that foot’s gone. Oh, well. His brother’s got him. Although Red’s shaking is silent, the front of Edge’s shirt gets hot and wet.

Fucking tragic, really. His gormless brother never listens to what Red _says_ , he pays attention to what he _does_. Edge knows there’s nothing Red wouldn’t do for him, because he’s done it all. Well and good for Red to call him worthless and worse, then _acts_ like he’s the most precious, amazing, and important thing the universe ever shat into Red’s lap. Because, horribly enough, he _is_.

And he always will be.

Red uncurls a fist and wraps his topmost arm around Edge. Just hugs his dumbass padded bones, and Edge strokes his skull over and over until he relaxes. Edge gets creepy when he’s hurt or upset, and when Red’s being a whiny bitch, sometimes he lets him. Edge lets go of his spine and pets that too like he’s the fucking cat or something, ceaselessly whispering the ugly truth, tapping his teeth on Red’s occipital bone between words.

“We’re alive because you didn’t leave me, and I won’t leave you, either. We’re alive, and you _always_ , you’re alWHAT THE _U_ _N_ HOLY _FUCK_ ARE YOU PUS-WEEPING DICKSTAINS _LOOKING AT_?!?!” Edge’s maximum screech is sudden enough Red actually jumps a little. “GET THE BLUE HELL _OUT_ OF MY HALLWAY BEFORE I SLIT YOUR DISGUSTING WEASENS WITH MY _COCK,_ PULL YOUR WORTHLESS _GUTS_ THROUGH THEM, AND MAKE YOU EAT YOUR OWN SHIT OUT OF YOUR INTESTINES UNTIL YOU _DIE_!!!”

Red leans up shakily and looks over his shoulder, lets out a weak little grunt-laugh. Yup, there’s a tiny space between the doorjamb and the curtain where the cat, finally fed up with skeleton shenanigans, had hastily exited the captain’s cubby. So of course the men gathered outside to hear their fates and the outcome of the inevitable argument got a nice eyeful of...welp.

Butt-ass naked Red, who appears to have lost his skirt-shirt in the fuss, getting stroked and kissed and a buncha sweet nothings whispered in his acoustic meatus. Red sighs. Shit like _this_ is why even the ones who figure Red’s fucking Sugar Jaques also just kinda assume he’s fucking his brother, too; they just don’t care cause it doesn’t affect their pecking order any.

And Red and Edge have never given a fuck what _anyone_ thinks of how they do business. Not that anyone ever got close enough to know they aren’t fucking, they’re just fucked up. Red’s pretty sure his brother ain’t interested in that with anyone, anyhow; if he knows people think that, he never said so. Right now Edge just looks faintly annoyed, but his expression flickers to concern as Red leans close.

“…til they _die_ , bro?” Red whispers. “don’tcha think that’s a lil harsh?”

He can feel his tearstained face trembling.

“Of course not,” Edge replies earnestly. “If I wanted to be harsh, I’d make them eat shit out of each _other’s_ intestines,” he nods decisively, “and keep going until they were full.”

“but...” a snort squeaks out of Red, “but it’s t-too _late_ , bro. they were already full a shit when we got em.”

The humans creep inevitably back to listen to their skeleton overlords cackling and insulting them, and Red grabs the shirt to cover his business again at some point. They really should know by now their argument has the same conclusion as always: they’re alive, they’re together, and Edge probably isn’t going to mutiny over this. About 70-30, at least. They know their fates, but now they’re just being greedy.

Edge and Red look at each other like indulgent parents listening to their children sneaking around for midnight snacks. Welp. Might as well give em what they keep clustering around their fucking door for.

Their intake of breath has the synchronicity borne of long practice.

_A farmer what lived in the north country_

_aye hey-ho and me bonny-o_

_He had daughters, one-two-three_

_the swans swim so bonny-o…._

Nothing like a murder ballad about sibling rivalry and snitch harps made out of dead bodies to cheer these scurvy dogs right back up. Human songs ain’t much different than the ones underground, although these fuckos like those too. Or maybe they just like the way Red’s growly baritone harmonizes with the boss’s rough, nasal tenor. _The Bonny Swans_ always takes about three quarters of an hour done right (and with Edge's usual freestyle solos, for fucks sakes), and Red’s feeling kinda sleepy by the time they get to the end.

Edge looks down at Red fondly, but Red frowns as his brother clears necklaces away from one side of his ribs. “uhh...” Edge gives him a downright impish look, rasps bare fingers over the bones, then….taps a little pattern and looks at Red demandingly.

Red stares at him.

_Skitter skitter; Tap-taptap._

Browbones lift.

_Tap-tapTAP._

Edge grins maniacally. “I feel unhappy….” he warbles plaintively.

Red snorts in realization, then finally sings, “doo da doo!”

They haven’t done this one for the men before, since they don’t have the goddamn piano anymore. They used to, though. For select audiences. This is a pretty novel solution. Red can almost smell the bloody bandages and beer.

“I feel so saaa-a-ad...”

“doo da doo!”

“I lost the best friend...”

“doot! doot!”

“That I ever haaa-a-ad...”

“doo da doo!!”

Red gamely pretends to be Undyne’s piano being played through the verses of Black Sabbath’s _Changes_ , then takes a deep breath when they reach the chorus. It feels like their combined voices soar out across the ocean like a goddamn albatross or something. All poetic and shit. It’s not exactly reassuring, it’s just...feels _true_ , is all.

… _I’m going through changes…._

Red falls asleep before the end, but his brother’s softening croons keep his dreams just above the waves, salt and bittersweet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 


	4. Last Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Deftones – Bloody Cape](https://youtu.be/5UCHWwSN3Fw)

Red hates this part.

He squats like a fat little crow at the highest point in the ship. He’s hidden between the sails, gnawing his salty fingers as he watches Edge yell at barrels. Well, yelling at men who are opening barrels and looking inside, checking each one meticulously before bringing anything on board. Once everything’s checked and laid out on the beach, once these fuckos leave….that’s when Red’ll come down and take them on a shortcut, placing them in preordained spots in their hold. Remains to be seen if they’ll actually get to that point or not.

Red would rather be the one on the beach. It’d make sense, since he could get out of there the second anything even thought about going sideways. But Edge’s vision ain’t all that keen, and Red can be on the beach as quick as the other way. There’s been quite a few times Red’s rode his bro like a fat, spiky backpack snarling directions so they can sync their attacks and move quicker than Red can on account of his bum leg. It’s been a year or two since shit got that bad, though.

Red worries his thumb until he tastes a blurt of dust, then switches to a new finger. As far as he’s concerned, that means they’re overdue for a shitshow. It’s less a question of _if_ Doucet’s gonna spring his trap, more like _when_. And hey, if he doesn’t they’ll consider it a pleasant surprise.

Red’s extra nervous because he and his brother ain’t at their best, and haven’t been for a long time. Red barely slept last night, and Edge didn’t at all. That ain’t unusual for either of em, and the shitty food, shitty company, and shitty situations one after the other have all taken their toll. They’d been sharp at the beginning of this directionless journey, but lacked the experience and knowledge to keep from stepping on every mine this world had in store for them. Now they got the experience, but their skulls are husked out inside from the rocking ship, the wind and waves, from Edge’s grinding anxiety and Red’s temper tantrums. From monotonous boredom and the ceaseless threat of sudden, inescapable violence.

From smelling, hearing, and looking at nothing but humans and each other, drifting through a world utterly devoid of magic except what they have and make in their own bodies.

They have no way to know if being in this empty place can have an effect on them, and if it does, there sure as hell ain’t anything they can do about it. Still hurts, though. Almost everything Red touches feels vaguely dead and empty to him, even humans sometimes. It’s part of why he and his brother do their weird cuddling shit, and Red stops thinking about that because he’s letting himself get _fucking distracted_ again, which is gonna get them killed because there’s some kinda problem down there.

He reads the words off one of the other crewman’s lips; apparently Edge is rejecting two of the kipper barrels. Went off, most like. Welp, Peely’s guy is apparently vested with the power to wheel and deal, and it looks like Edge just knocks off a bolt from his side of things. Problem solved. Edge checked their hold when he went over a few days back, made sure he had reason to believe Captain Chicharron actually _had_ the shit he was offering, but this check’s more thorough.

Red tastes another burst of dust, and this time he actually pays attention to his _own_ reactions. He’s chewing his fingers because something’s twigging his instincts. But it’s not about what going on right now, it’s about how this is set up. Shit. Red squints down, chewing harder and thinking as fast as he can. Sees if it something they can take advantage of, maybe.

He watches Doucet’s group come back with another spate of barrels, slow and wiggly like they can barely make it. Edge actually flicks a concerned look at one of them, takes a step towards him. Red doesn’t know why Doucet’s sending _them_ instead of strapping dudes who can actually make this trade take less than all goddamned day.

But if he _wants_ to drag this out...is Doucet waiting for something? For some kinda backup to show up, maybe? Welp, Red’s got lookouts in every direction, already sent a group out to scout this sandbar to flush out anyone lying in wait. Whole place was quiet as the grave, they even found the fucking _well_ Doucet was running his mouth about. Turns out that was true, not that it means anything, but Edge’s sourpuss got a lot sweeter after finding that.

Red scowls down at the other captain’s men, trying to, to figure out what they….have in common. Bum leg. Eyepatch. Sick. Old. The kinda folks Doucet’s kinda humans always think of as….

Red gets cold all over, and it ain’t the wind.

 _Expendable_.

Fuck no; _fuck_ no.

Red stumbles upright and reaches for a shortcut. He steps right off the mast and plants his booted foot heavily on the sand as close as he dares, staggering toward his brother with his hand out. Stupid fucking peg slides into a dry patch, and Red shakes it free. They are getting the fuck out of dodge, and they’re getting out now.

“SANS, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!! GET BACK ON THE FUCKING _BOAT_ BEFORE I-”

“that shit’s-”

Edge’s head snaps toward the yet-to-be-opened barrels like a viper’s. Red interrupts himself with a ridiculous _oof_ sound, because his brother just shoved him so hard it dings his HP when he hits the sand. There’s a split second of Edge mid-stumble, looking at his brother with a completely incongruous expression.

Red has a fraction of a second to wonder why it got so hot all of a sudden, to wonder why the hell his brother looks _apologetic_ , as if Red’s gonna complain about getting pushed over if shit’s gone sideways.

Then a chunk of wood takes his brother’s right arm and shoulder along with it as it careens past.

Edge’s crimson eyes short out like blown bulbs, and he falls to the ground heavily two feet shy of Red’s booted foot.

The lone surviving human not on their crew is already a pincushion of scarlet bones in the half-second it takes Red to scramble-crawl to his brother. No point in chasing down his missing chunk, it’s already dust. Hightails it right out of existence as soon as the magic holding him together is severed, just like Red’s leg.

Red touches the spot where what’s left of his brother begins, dumps in as much magic as he can in to seal off the spread of nothing eating its way up Edge’s bones. Looks like it already took half his clavicle. It’s messy, not like the clean knob end of Red’s femur he shoves into that stupid peg every morning. A few ribs fore and aft arc jaggedly into nothingness under shredded cloth.

“...nononononono….”

It’s Red’s voice, a thousand miles away. There’s screaming and shit blowing up, yeah, but Red’s world already ended. Because he’s realizing _he can’t fix this_. He can keep it where it is for now, keep his brother’s ribcage from collapsing in on itself and ending him right here on the beach. But despite all those meticulous explanations, he still can’t hook his magic into whatever that thing is Edge uses to pull bone back out from nothing. He can’t stop doing what he’s doing either, can’t make it _stay_.

And Edge is hurt too bad to help, or guide Red through it.

Before he knows it, Red’s got his brother in his arms, folded up so he can actually carry his stupid tall ass, and he’s screaming at his people to grab on if they want out. There’s only two left; looks like Poxy John, Crease, and Roger all bit it based on the chunks around the black, blasted hole in the sand over to the side there. Red looks away quickly.

Nothing there to see but Red’s bad call, the worst one yet.

Red takes a step and he’s on his own decks. The men peel off, run where he tell them to go. Red hobbles up to the topdeck, gets a bead on Doucet’s ship, men running around like fucking rats over there, too. And there’s the boiled pig himself, barreling around like he owns the place. Heh.

Red doesn’t need anyone to tell him this was no fucking accident. He’s got no way to know if Doucet thought the barrels of gunpowder were gonna get loaded on the ship, or if he just took the opportunity of Red showing up on the beach to blow them to hell. Either way, this depraved sack of leavings just blew up a quarter of his _own crew_ on _purpose_. Deliberate and calculated, all part of some crackpot _plan_ Red still hasn’t entirely figured out, because he doesn’t see the fucking point of cutting off your nose if you don’t have a face left to spite once it’s done. No wonder that part didn’t trip Edge’s flags; not _all_ of em at least.

After this, there ain’t enough folk left to sail Doucet’s damn boat. What’s it called. The _Descartes_. Not the sort of thing anyone _sane_ does, unless…

Unless he has replacements waiting somewhere close by, folks too scared to say no.

Then a cannonball blows a hole right in the side of the _BoneRipper_ , one hidden under a pile of plants and shit so far down the beach Red never would have guessed it’d actually _hit_ , even if he’d known it was there.

God _damn_ it. How did they not _find_ that in the sweep? How…?

It doesn’t matter. They need to get the hell out of here yesterday.

Red finds the hole with his magic, slaps it over the wound in the ship’s side. Then he yanks the anchor up himself, feels magic bleed out of him til he gets dizzy, then stabilizes. But he can’t afford the time it takes for the men to haul it up. He hears himself screeching orders for full speed, because without those people….

Nevermind. Red kisses his head start goodbye as he watches the sails on Doucet’s scow already swinging right into position. Doucet already had his extras on the ship, must’ve loaded em up this morning because Edge’s headcounts when he scouts don’t ever fail to add up.

They fell right into a blind spot he and Edge just can’t seem to shake, even when their lives depends on it. Which is pretty much all the time. Red does what he can to speed his ship away, but motherfucking Peely’s right behind them. Because he wants to kill them, sink the _BoneRipper_ , wipe em out. Red knows in his own murdering bones that Doucet’s something worse than he is.

Yeah, Red and his brother killed people, way before they ever got barfed up on these strange shores. Thing is, Red and Edge knew _who_ they were killing and _why_. Knew exactly what effects would ripple out from their deaths; hell, half the time that was the point. Killed monsters, mostly ones who were trying to kill them, but a few who just. Really needed killing, too.

Someone’s yelling something at Red again, but he kicks and screams them away. Yells something about turning the boat so it’s not fucking broadside like a sitting duck, then tries, once again, to _think_. Right. Killing people.

Pretty much everyone did. That’s why there weren’t enough people in Edge and Red’s Underground, even fewer when they had a LV surge and Asgore ordered a cull. But these types of humans? They _waste_ people. Do it like something is driving them to it, kill folks even when there’s no advantage in it, no point. They’re not even pissed, they don’t even _know_ the people they’re killing. They do it even when it’d make more sense _not to_.

And right now, none of this makes sense.

Doucet’s acting like taking the _BoneRipper_ out is his number one goal, and there ain’t anything worth this kinda fuckarow on board. A few bolts of cloth? Tibam’s fucking _chickens_?? For the life of him, Red cannot figure out what the fuck Doucet could stand to gain from wiping Bloody Cape off the face of the earth.

Because that’s what he’s fucking doing. Dropping those men on the beach, right now he’s throwing shit overboard Red thinks was the promised trade stock so he can go even faster, dumping cargo to catch up to to the BoneRipper and fucking sink it.

And it doesn’t make sense. Not a lick of it. If his brother wasn’t hurt, the _Descartes_ would already be some shark’s new living room. But Red can’t keep Edge’s shit together, the boat above the waves, _and_ murdalize these harrying shitstains all at once. Not by himself. Red’s magic always felt bottomless, but apparently his limits waited until their lives are on the line to show up. Story of his life.

Red’s still crouched on the topdeck with his brother in his arms, screeching like a vulture over its nest of already-broken eggs. He does a quick boxstep to kick the man who keeps yanking on his peg and yelling, trying to get his attention. He misses, which makes Red notice it’s Rags who recently learned to expect kicks. He spits at him, scurries away. Whatever. Fuck that shit, Red’s trying to think.

He needs to, to _think_. Between Edge and the boat, magic’s pouring out of him like blood from a severed jugular. Yeah, Red’s drowning in the fucking facts, but Doucet’s got no reason the think Red _can’t_ fucking sink the _Descartes_. Usually it’d be as easy as breathing. Doucet should be running the other way, not chasing them.

Everyone knows Bloody Cape can... he’d...he’d have every reason to...

Something very unfortunate occurs to Red. He strains his vision so far he feels something tear, but he still reads a snatch of words off Captain Peely’s lips as he swallows a gout of torn magic from inside his skull. Another swallow, and he catches the next sentence.

All the air punches out of Red a big, ugly gush.

Of _course_ this dumbass thinks motherfucking _Bloody Cape’s_ the one controlling the cove.

Thinks that’s where the _Bone_ _R_ _ipper_ sleeps when she ain’t out fucking up someone’s day. Peely Doucet believes something of unimaginable value is hidden there, years’ worth of ‘pirate treasure’ squirreled away safe. So this shitstain decided to take Red out somewhere close but too far to run to quickly if he blew a hole in him, and figured he’d sail right in afterwards slick as a buttered belaying pin. Red shakes with silent, hysterical laughter, wishes he could see the fucker’s face when something pokes his hull and his ass full of holes anyhow.

Doucet’s doing this because he doesn’t know any better.

Frawn _say_ over there thinks the defense around the inlet’s the Immortal Pirate King, except it _ain’t_. Another staggering blind spot Red couldn’t account for until it’s too late. It’s excruciatingly obvious to anyone around _here_ that Red doesn’t have the cove, because of how his ship moves, what Red trades for. They can read it like a love letter in the ships he attacks, the direction he runs, where he stops and where he doesn’t.

But Doucet ain’t _from_ around here, and obviously didn’t bother to do even basic intel before blowing up half his own shit. Blew his own men straight to hell on the basis of a half-baked assumption, in order to gain an unknown and possibly nonexistent quantity. He’s worse than evil and stupid; evil’s expected, and stupid’s something Red can sniff out in a dick’s twitch and plan for accordingly. Nah, Doucet’s fucking evil and _willfully ignorant_ , and that’s what’s currently getting everyone on _both_ their shitty boats killed.

He literally doesn’t know he’d be dead where he stands if Red wasn’t dumping half of everything he’s got into his brother to keep him from dusting. Doucet’s ignorance about what Red can really do to his ship, what he’d have already done if it wasn’t for him getting lucky…. that’s what led Red to the stark ass fucking truth of it, way too late to do anything about it. No brilliant master plan brought their operation down in the end. Just a boring, pedestrian combination of pig-ignorance and _luck_.

Red sees Sugar Jaques scrambling across the deck instead of below doing his fucking _job_.

“the _fuck_ are you _doing_?” Red roars. Sugar Jaques ignores him like always, grabs a bag of something, a skein of rope. “get _down_ there, get that hole!! fucking!! _patched_!!” Sugar grabs something else, then bolts back belowdecks.

Tears sheet unheeded down Red’s face as he screeches orders and clutches his brother, trying desperately to _think_. But he’s out of options. He can’t outrun that ship, he’s already pushing himself as hard as he dares. And if he splits off enough magic to take down the _Descartes_ , his brother’s gonna dust in his arms. He can’t afford to let up, even if he lets the BoneRipper take water through the hole he’s patching with his own guts. He’s got nowhere to _go_ , despite what Peely thinks.

Turns out that Red’s worst call yet...is also his last.

Red knows what magic smells like, can taste it in the air all around that fucking inlet. He _knows_ it’s a monster in there, something at least as strong as he and Edge put together. Could be a whole passel; hell, might be the equivalent of the entire fucking Underground in there. Red has no clue if it’s monsters who predate the barrier and somehow missed the roundup, or if they busted the barrier’s cherry already and holed up somewhere safer while humanity burns itself down.

It’s what Red would do, and that place is perfect. A series of islands from what he could see, perfectly defensible since the only way _in_ is a narrow gap in the mostly-underwater stone formation ringing nearly the entire area. Submerged volcano or something. A few other breaks in the wall-like formation _look_ likely, but jagged rocks under the surface will tear the guts clean out of your hull faster than you can say _disembowelment_.

He spent quite some time wondering if _this_ place is Ebott, gone nameless and forgotten in this starforsaken world. Red spent all that time, his whole life trying to get out of the underground, and today he’d give his nonexistent nuts to get in. Fact is, he tried and failed to get in there more than once, and now he and his brother are gonna finish bleeding out right on their doorstep.

Red holds his inevitably, eventually dying brother and scream-snarls the order: head full speed for the inlet. He tastes ash and smoke as he watches something like hope flicker in the eyes of a few scuttling sailors. Apparently even they had some kinda misbegotten that Red has some connection to whatever the fuck’s going on in that set of islets. The taste of death in Red’s mouth gets washed out by a flood of bitterness. Yeah, well. Red doesn’t wanna believe it’s over either, and he doesn’t bother telling any of them so. But it is.

He doesn’t have any plan other than he doesn’t want this fuckface to have the satisfaction of sinking the _Bone_ _Ri_ _pper._ If he plays his cards right, Red can lure Doucet in right behind him. Too late to get out of the way of what’s coming to anyone who tries to get inside.

Another blast from the _Descartes_ ’s gunwales bores two more holes in the side of Red’s ship, and he jumps down from the topdeck and takes shelter before some other surprise blows his fucking skull off his shoulders. The man he tried to kick in the face earlier was probably trying to get him _down_ , and Red…well.

Red’s too busy panicking. That’s pretty much all he’s been doing, since…

Red pulls his unconscious brother tighter to him.

He’s not cut out for this. No one in their right mind would make Red the captain of anything, but none of them had much choice. He’s all they got, and it turns out he’s worse than nothing. Now all those chickenhead decisions are coming home to roost, and another jolt of unknown origin knocks Red off his foot.

Edge doesn’t go anywhere, cradled carefully despite his height as Red falls on his ass hard, but a human hits the deck with a wet splat a few yards away. Red can see it’s John through the blood. Not Poxy, he already got deaded at the beach. That’s regular John, and…welp. That _was_. Red watches the last glimmer of light go out of his eyes. He’s not anything but a pile of meat anymore.

Red takes a deep, searing breath and bellows wordlessly with helpless, blinding rage. Then he swallows more torn magic, feels a sick judder go through the groaning timbers. He feels each wound to the _Bone_ _R_ _ipper_ as if it were to his own body. Same with the men. They might be the smelliest, most obnoxious, and stupidest roommates Red’s ever had, but they’re _his_. They don’t _get_ to just die in the ocean without his permission. He’s supposed to be the _captain_ , dammit.

Something else impacts the boat, slamming Red and his brother against the railing. Edge doesn’t leave his grasp as gravity switches directions; they slide the length of the deck, but a crack from a loose firkin spirals a split up Red’s femur from the knee almost to his pelvis. His scream of agony get cuts off when something hits his head, and he tastes more torn magic pouring from his nasal aperture. He doesn’t stop cradling Edge’s skull carefully as his pinky’s smashed between precious curved bone and something harder, but then…

Another impact, a moment of weightlessness, and suddenly screams, guncracks, and the sound of stories ending are swallowed up by a ceaseless roar Red knows well.

They’re in the water, and it’s almost a relief. He feels lighter as the ocean presses down on him. Red has a bad moment when something heavy tangles his leg and makes them sink doubletime, but then he realizes it doesn’t hurt, that it’s just his peg, and then it comes free and nothing much matters anymore. He doesn’t open his eyes, because he knows there’s nothing left to see. He doesn’t let Edge go. He never did, never will.

They settle on the soft, sandy bottom together. Just Red, the ocean, and the….the only thing…that ever mattered.

“love you, bro,” he tries to say, forgetting that while he can breathe water, he can’t actually _talk_ with it. Eh, it’s fine. He knows.

He soothes his brother’s skull idly with his broken hand, the deepening chill of the ocean numbing the pain a little.

He feels it when his magic reserves finally end, and keeping Papyrus’s body stable starts to tug at his HP. He does something strange that opens it up and lets it drain, since this is just a little dream he’s having, half-asleep crouched between piles behind a burning dumpster in New Home.

Nice and warm, just like the water’s getting now.

Sans pets the kid’s tiny skull, lets him get as much rest as he can before he wakes up and starts all that noise again. Gotta find somewhere else to hide once he does, but for now….Sans can rest, too. The weight of the earth finally presses his sockets open, and he smiles gently as the void floods in where his mind used to be.

They can both finally get a little rest.

He’s not conscious when something grabs him by the spine and pulls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 


	5. Choking on Sunshine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Pixies – Wave Of Mutilation (UK Surf)](https://youtu.be/_BC061qfj_o)

When Sans opens his sockets to his brother’s blank-socketed yet smiling face, all he can do is moan in nauseous relief even as his whole body sets alight with burning agony.

He should have just let him go rather than dragging Papyrus down with him. But he can’t help being selfishly comforted.

At least they’re together in hell.

“p...paps--!” he croaks, his shaking hand wavering at the corner of his vision. He tries to reach out, hits himself in the face instead.

“YES AND NO,” that grinning skull says carefully. His voice sounds…strange. “HOW ARE YOU FEELING?”

His teeth are flat. And his sockets…they're not _blank_ , his eyes are _black_. Not red.

This isn’t…

“...where’s...my fucking... _brother_ ,” Red wheezes, voice barely there over the sick rattle of bones. He tries to check him, whimpers as his headache flares white-hot at the strain.

* P A P Y R U S

*??

* (stop hitting yourself)

“HE’S BADLY HURT AND SLEEPING,” Not-His-Brother-But-Somehow-Papyrus says firmly. “AND HE WILL STAY THAT WAY FOR SOME TIME YET. _I’M_ HERE BECAUSE YOU’RE LEAST LIKELY TO KILL ME BEFORE I COULD SAY ANYTHING, AND YOU ALSO PROBABLY WON’T BE ABLE TO WHEN YOU TRY. SO, THANKS FOR LETTING ME TALK FIRST! TO REITERATE, HOW ARE YOU FEELING?”

“where’s my _ship_?” Red pants, panic tickling at his guttering soul. He can’t…. do anything, really. His mind’s an inferno of confusion and pain, his limbs are like lead jelly. They just twitch and shake, won’t listen to him, worthless pieces of--

“IT SANK.”

Red clenches his magic around the despairing whine that tries to escape.

“my humans??”

Not-Edge tilts his skull nervously.

“I….DON’T EXACTLY...” The worried expression slides off to make way for a sunny grin. “THE IMPORTANT THING IS, YOU’RE NOT DEAD! AREN’T YOU HAPPY ABOUT _THAT_ , AT LEAST?”

Red thrashes, screaming in thwarted rage and agony. Well, he tries to. Instead, he keens weakly and twitches. Pain lances through his magic, and his bones burn and spark like he sat in a fire too long. His magic roars up trying to form an attack, which fizzles right out into a few motes. _That_ hurts so bad he almost manages the scream this time.

Not-Edge sighs, and Red’s too fucked up to even figure out if it’s relief or regret. He comes right up to the pallet, pulls Red’s blankets back up as he pants there helplessly. Red’s snarling attempts turn to chuffing sobs. Maybe hell would have been better than whatever the fuck this is.

“WELL, AT LEAST NOW I KNOW YOU CAN’T KILL ANYONE YET,” he mutters, still tucking the blanket around and under him. In his current state it makes a fairly efficient restraint system. Then he raises his voice, making Red freeze in alarm as he calls Red’s name.

“SANS! YOU CAN COME IN! HE CAN’T KILL YOU YET!!”

He flinches at the blinding silhouette as the curtain-door parts, and everything inside him goes cold as the grave he’s still half-sure he and his brother died in.

He doesn’t have to check this time. Something in him...knows. That same _something_ feels like he just dodged a bullet, and at the same time wishes it had hit him after all. This shouldn’t be happening.

Red goes still as a mouse, shocked and overwhelmed as...Sans comes in.

Not-Edge’s fingers twitch in Hands: _He asked after all of them, even the-_ -. A smaller hand clacks gently around his fingers to still them, and Red sees “Sans’s” sockets narrow above an unrepentant grin.

His eyes are _white_. What the fuck.

“what the _fuck_?” Red breathes.

“guess now we know we won’t just blow up if we meet,” creepy flat-teeth white-eyed Sans drawls unhurriedly. He’s trying to bury carefully hidden tension under cheerful indifference. He looks fuckin’ stoned.

“shit,” Red grunts weakly, every breath sending a lance through his throbbing leg so he keeps holding it. It just makes the pain worse when he _has_ to breathe, but he can’t seem to stop.

So, the machine (at the bottom of the ocean, fuckfuckFUCK) can do a lot of shit that would make pretty much anyone uncomfortable, in a seriously existential kind of way. Getting sucked into some other century or ending up on the moon because you dropped a bottle of mustard in there is pretty much par for the course, but. But. ‘Alternate dimension duplicates of everyone’ was on the list, yeah, it was just _way_ down there. Not as far as both getting sucked into another time (or another planet) that _also_ includes alternate versions of both himself and his brother. His fucking brother.

“where’s my _bro_?” Red manages the next time he has to breathe.

“ain’t you gonna ask the good doc here when you’ll be back on one leg?” Sans says, a tinge of mocking sweetness decorating his apathetic drawl.

“i don’t need sunshine here ta tell me i’m fucked more’n halfway over the rainbow,” Red grunts laboriously. “where th’ hell’s my _brother_?”

“somewhere you can’t hurt him worse tryin’ any of your crap,” his freaky, albino-eyed double says indifferently, sauntering up to loom over him. “not sure if you noticed, but you’re not exactly stable right now.” He’s got some kind of light shirt, and a...skirt thing? On. There’s a tube-shaped pocket sewn on front, and he’s got his hands tucked in there. As Red watches, he sees him scratch his pelvis through the layers of cloth from inside the pocket thing. He’s grinning.

Red’s breath moans in and grunts out. He forces words through it anyhow.

“i’m. s’posed to believe. you got my brother. tucked _away_ somewhere to keep him safe from _me_?”

“YOU’RE NOT ACTUALLY _SUPPOSED_ TO DO ANYTHING BUT LIE THERE RIGHT NOW!” Sunshine interjects. “GETTING YOU TO _DO_ THAT CONTINUES TO BE A CHALLENGE!” He’s fucking around over to the side of a low...room. Some kinda room, Sunshine messing with some kinda plants and bowls and fire and shit, reminds Red of…

(NOTHING)

“you two gonna make _real certain_ i do that, sansy?” Red pants deliriously up at his double, suppressing the shiver when he realizes he couldn’t take a shortcut to his own dickhole right now. There’s literally nothing when he reaches for it.

“…heh. _sans_ y.” He scratching his chin, then tucks his hand back in that pocket. “seems like we got a real john jacob jingleheimer schmidt situation going on here.”

Red’s silent.

“well, i ain’t calling you ‘bloody cape’. that sounds like some kinda disease humans get from drinking dirty water.”

“YOU WOULD BE AMAZED AT HOW OFTEN THEY DO THAT!” Sunshine adds brightly. “WHERE DO THEY EVEN _FIND_ SO MUCH OF IT, ANYWAYS?”

Red cuts off a whine, winces at another flare of pain. “they call me red, i guess.” He stares at his creepy doppelganger. “guess that m-, mhhh. makes you whitey, h-huh? or they just call you _sans_ , since you got here first? you like the plain wrap store brand or something?

“neither of us belong here,” he replies dully. “we got equal rights to it. call me ‘comic’.”

Sunshine grimaces in a familiar way that pinches Red’s soul. “REALLY, SANS? _REALLY_??” Comic huffs and chuffs, seems awfully proud of that one. “I’M NOT CALLING YOU THAT. YOU’RE _NOT_ FUNNY.”

“up to you,” he tells his brother evenly. “might be quicker when someone asks you which one, though.”

“’MY LAZY BROTHER’ HAS ALWAYS SUFFICED.”

“aww. glad to be sufficient.”

“NYES. YOU SHOULD PUT THAT ON YOUR BUSINESS CARDS!”

“you two are fuckin’ creepy,” Red groans laboriously.

Comic’s colorless eyes go hard at the edges, but Sunshine puffs up like he’s proud.

“NYEH HEH HEH! CREEPY IS JUST SOMETHING COOLNESS-DEFICIENT PEOPLE SAY ABOUT COOL PEOPLE THEY ASPIRE TO BE MORE LIKE!”

“you sayin’ ’m not cool?” Red blurts out, inexplicably stung. Death’s Door is apparently a location with way too many feelings for Red’s comfort. Which also leads to the idea that he should consider _relocating_ , perhaps to somewhere slightly less death-adjacent before making snap judgements, which...also...are not his usual kind of thoughts.

“COOLNESS IS AN ACHIEVEMENT THAT CAN BE UNLOCKED BY ANYONE WHO SETS THEIR MIND TO IT!! LESSON THE FIRST OF COOLNESS: PERHAPS RECONSIDER MURDER AS A FIRST LINE OF RESPONSE TO NEARLY EVERY SITUATION, AND INSTEAD FIND A HOBBY MORE SURVIVABLE FOR ALL INVOLVED! INCLUDING YOU!”

“that’s fucking rich, coming from _you_.”

“habout you shut the fuck up?” Comic hisses, and his brother clucks and flusters at him like one of Tibam’s… Red cuts that thought off like a gangrenous limb.

“you got a problem. with how we deal with things, why. the hell d’you fish us out of the drink?” Red manages to grate through the searing pain lighting up his entire right side. Oh, right. His femur’s split crotch to knee.

“YOU DIDN’T COME HERE TO KILL US THIS TIME,” Sunshine says as if it’s obvious. “YOU CAME HERE BECAUSE YOU WERE TRYING TO GET AWAY FROM SOMEONE TRYING TO KILL _YOU_. AFTER ALL, THAT’S HOW WE-”

“better thank paps for that,” Comic interrupts with hidden tightness. “i planned to leave ya there.” His brother’s gaze falls on him like an unwelcome arm, and Comic visibly suppresses a flinch.

“HE WOULD NOT! ANY MORE THAN I WOULD HAVE LEFT YOU, WHICH I WILL STILL NOT DO. BECAUSE I BELIEVE YOU DON’T WANT TO HURT US! AND THAT YOU DON’T WANT TO HURT ANYONE! AND THAT YOU’RE JUST SCARED AND CONFUSED LIKE WE WERE AND STILL ARE!”

That bright smile doesn’t budge.

“IN FACT, YOU WOULD BE _AMAZED_ AT HOW MANY THINGS I CAN BELIEVE!”

Comic _does_ flinch that time. The crack in his facade lets Red’s perception in just enough for a little shock. Comic actually _did_ want to fish him out, Red in particular. That fun fact makes him go cold again, because there’s no world twisted enough for that to be a _good_ thing.

To his utter chagrin….Red just starts crying.

It’s too much. He can’t do anything, he can barely talk. If these freakshows are gonna snip his fingers and toes off and make him eat them, there’s nothing he can do about it. No way to know whether anything he’s been told is true, or just meant to get the biggest rise. These two creeps are working him til Red’s a yeasty ball of dough ready for the oven. No way to know whether his brother’s _really_ alive or not….

Whether any of this is even fucking _real_.

But that’s not what makes a piece of his mind break right the fuck off and float away.

“where’s my cat?” Red whispers, voice suddenly drier than the sandy packed dirt of the floor. His tears disappear, and so do his eyes. He can feel his own sockets yawning emptily, hears a weird noise he doesn’t recognize.

Cats don’t know shit from shat, they don’t know about coves or shipwrecks or how not to die in the ocean. They didn’t _choose_ to be on Red’s doomed fucking boat in the first place, but they die just as easy as anyone that did. Red’s the captain. They _trusted_ him. He’s, he’s supposed to make sure everyone….he needs, _needs_ to...

“my cat, m...m-muh….my fucking _cat_ , where’s my-”

Red doesn’t really remember the next part too good.

Just the flash of utter shock on Comic’s face as Red finds the strength to start screaming after all, the taste of his own shredding magic as his voice tears it open dripping inside his skull. The nauseating pain of what used to be his good leg splitting again as he crawls around like a crushed bug, looking for his fucking _cat_.

There’s some yelling maybe and Comic’s suddenly gone, then the next thing Red knows Sunshine’s got him, struggling and choking as he tips something syrupy-sweet down his throat. His screams gurgle like blood and honey, and a billowing grey fog boils up from the void to fill his limbs with lead, then his skull. Then the void just swallows Red whole.

When Red exists again, the first thing he feels is a low vibration inside his ribcage, emitting from a soft heavy weight that goes _mrrp_?

His jerky breath is voiceless, because he broke it real good somehow. He doesn't...remember, exactly. He also can’t see… or move, as it turns out, but apparently Sunshine knows he can hear.

“SANS SAVED THE CATS FIRST,” he caws like a distant crow. “ALL OF THEM.”

Red can’t do anything except cry about it.

So he does.


	6. Secretive Platonic Dating

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Rasputina – The Olde Headboard](https://youtu.be/RVsF2whuzIM)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please check out this awesome art Serenade Bleue did of a mermaid Sans to go with my original design of Pirate King Red!
> 
> https://twitter.com/Serenade_bleue/status/1280070754399399937
> 
> Comic is sadly no mermaid, but ya still 100% got me! The call of Kustard compels me <3

Red drifts in and out of consciousness.

Sometimes Comic’s there, and sometimes it’s Sunshine.

“where’s my brother?” he whispers ceaselessly.

“NEARBY,” Sunshine replies, startling Red. Oh. He’s actually here. There’s _always_ someone here, he keeps forgetting that part. “YOU WOULD BE IN BETTER SHAPE IF HE WASN’T HURT AS BADLY AS HE IS. I’M VERY TIRED!”

“paps is hurt?” Red asks, then immediately flinches. He sees that chunk of wood taking his brother’s arm again. Then again. It makes an appropriate mental soundtrack for the pain in his femur, since it feels how that looked. Then he’s tired of seeing it, so Red actually bothers looking at Sunshine in the filtered moonlight and faint glow of maybe-a-fire somewhere to the side. He _does_ look fucking tired. Seems like a pretty pat answer to the question chasing Red’s thoughts like a cattle prod, which is ‘if you’re a fucking healer, why don’t you do something about how bad this hurts.’ Then Red remembers where they are, and there _ain’t_ anything to-

“I CAN GIVE YOU SOMETHING.” The words aren’t hesitant, but Red can pick it out of his expression.

“a catch, huh?” he says hoarsely.

“JUST...” Sunshine flicks his black eyes at Red a few times. “DON’T TELL MY BROTHER.”

“tell ‘im what?” Red pants.

“YES, EXACTLY!”

Red’s browbones twitch. Don’t tell Comic he _had_ anything _to_ give him, maybe. Huh. Whatever that stuff is...it’s also an intoxicant. Red and Edge lamented frequently that human drink and drugs didn’t work on either of them, any more than… Red lets that thought trail off once again. Whatever. Point is, maybe Sunshine doesn’t want his brother to know he figured out how to make drugs that work on skeletons. There’s a short list of reasons why that might be. Red figures Comic would be dipping in and that’s what Sunshine's worried about.

“how long’ve i been here?” Red asks, soul quailing with sudden anxiety. Then it gutters out. Everything’s gone, there nothing to worry about anymore. _BoneRipper_ ’s sunk. Worst case scenario achieved, all’s lost. All except… “where’s my brother?”

“THIS ISN’T THE FIRST TIME YOU’VE WOKEN UP,” Sunshine evades with aplomb, messing around with some plant shit in a way that twigs a half-burnt shred of memory. Like he’s telling the truth, which doesn’t make sense. “YOUR BROTHER IS NEARBY, BUT YOU OCCASIONALLY...BECOME SLIGHTLY ENRAGED? AND DO NOT REMEMBER WHERE YOU ARE??”

Red looks down at himself suddenly. Barebones, yeah, and he sees the spiral split up his femur. Thins out just before his pelvis. It’s partly healed, no gap in the bone but the scar tissue filling it’s...puffy? Fat? Like it’s…

“ALMOST AS IF YOU SPLIT IT _AGAIN_ DURING ONE OF YOUR _EPISODES_ ,” Sunshine muses, and Red shudders and covers himself with the soft, light blanket. He doesn’t like how Sunshine’s following his thoughts. Almost like Edge.

“HE IS BADLY HURT,” Sunshine (Papyrus) says, hunkering down now near Red’s bedside with a bowl. Red stares at it suspiciously. Then his sockets narrow against Sunshine’s sigh, so laborious it might count as weather.

“YES, YOU HAVE CAUGHT ME!! WHAT INCISIVE, DEVASTATING INSIGHT!! I MIXED FOOD IN SECRETLY WITH YOUR DRUGS AGAIN.” Red shivers. “WHY YOU WON’T JUST _EAT_ LIKE A NORMAL PERSON, I DON’T...”

He trails off, because Red’s crying. He doesn’t mean for it to happen, it just does. Not as embarrassing as what happens after this part, but there’s still nothing he can do about it. Sunshine sets the bowl down, reaches for Red instead. Winds the blanket around and gathers him up gentle as a cloud, pulls him against his broad ribcage and holds him there. Doesn’t say anything, just lets Red feel the magic in his body. Another monster, someone else here with him to make him feel less like he’s dead already, maimed and helpless in a magic-less, soulless hellscape. A little less alone. When Red finally can’t hold his breath anymore, Sunshine rubs his back while he sobs.

This feels very suddenly like it happens a lot. Or that’s it’s been going on for a long time. Red shudders and clings, feeling like a scared fish while the shadow of a ship passes over. He tries to think, to figure something out, but...his leg hurts so much. His whole body hurts, feels wrong, somehow. Something’s _wrong_.

“where’s...” His voice breaks, and Red gives up.

“IT’S NIGHTTIME! YOUR CAT IS OUT ENGAGING IN A STIMULATING STALEMATE WITH THE LOCAL IGUANA POPULATION!”

“oh.” Red wipes his face on the blanket. “bout the same size, i guess.”

“NOT ALWAYS!” Sunshine makes an uncomfortable little noise. “IF YOU WOULD PREFER I LEAVE THE VARIOUS HALVES OF SMALLER-THAN-CATS IGUANAS ON YOUR PILLOW, I, I UNDERSTAND THEY ARE MEANT AS A GIFT, AND-O-OH DEAR, I DIDN’T MEAN TO-”

Sunshine thinks he’s crying again, but Red’s shoulders shake thinking about the hilarious face Edge used to make at the rat halves on his pillow. Used to. Aww, for fuck’s sakes, there he goes again. Sunshine’s always right about everything. It’s really starting to piss him off.

“WILL YOU _PLEASE_ DRINK YOUR FOODED DRUGS NOW?” Sunshine whines.

He does, since nothing matters anymore. He’s not expecting Sunshine to crawl in with him when he puts him back, but he does. Guess he really is tired. Has his own blanket but he pulls it over them both, puts an arm over Red in an achingly familiar way.

He thinks he only closes his eyes for a second, but the next time he opens them Sunshine’s gone from behind him.

Comic’s slumped against the wall instead, and motes are traveling through beams of faint sunlight. His jailor’s hands are tucked into that stupid tube pocket, legs akimbo and tented. He looks asleep, but those dirty toes wiggle just before he cracks open a socket.

He just eyes Red speculatively and waits.

“where is…?” Red coughs, becomes aware of a rumbling, furry heat leaned against his skull, putting his neck an an uncomfortable angle. Red struggles up to an elbow. His cat gives him a dirty look as it rolls into the dent Red’s noggin left in the pillow, then it goes back to sleep where it landed.

Red looks around, notes the cracks in the walls. Like this place was built in a hurry, out of green wood that warped as it set. There’s a doorhole with nothing in it, but the roof’s more solid than the walls. The floor’s made of sandy packed dirt, but the pallet Red’s on has some kind of extra padding inside. Doesn’t poke or rustle. “what kinda fuckin’ outhouse is _this_? where’re we at?”

Comic’s browbones shoot up straight, white points in his sockets shrinking like Red shocked the shit out of him.

Well, that’s stupid of him. Red’s question makes perfect sense.

“asked some humans to build it to put you in,” Comic says slow and measured.

“they do what you say?” Red rasps, blinking his sockets to buy time. He notices the back of his business hand has a few new dings in it, but it doesn’t hurt when he flexes it. Moves his leg, and… doesn’t hurt too much, actually. And it works.

But his…. _thoughts_ don’t really work. It’s a little hard to talk.

That’s concerning.

“more like, they do what i make it worth their _while_ to do,” Comic answers.

“humans live here?”

“dunno if you noticed, but uh. there’s humans pretty much all over the place up here.”

“any of em mine?” Red rasps, and Comic’s brows go up again.

“nobody here belongs to anyone,” Comic starts, but Red interrupts.

“well, that’s a damn lie, cause you told me _my_ brother’s here.” Red lets the rest of that breath hiss wordless through his gritted teeth. He’s got a vague memory of punching the floor floating up from somewheres. Explains the scabby knuckles. “and _he_ ain’t nobody else’s.”

“okay,” Comic agrees easily. “you’re feeling pretty lucid today, huh?”

Red stares at him in silence. Comic blinks first.

“you hungry?”

“the fuck’s that got to do with anything?”

Comic stares back for a second, then he gets up and just fucking leaves.

Red doesn’t know what to do about that. He pets his cat awake, which it finds annoying enough that it too leaves. Red considers following suit, but he is naked and one-legged. Red finally screws up the courage to feel around his skull, try and figure out...oh. Yeah, there’s a new scar in back there. Some _one_ or some _thing_ cracked him a good one at some _point_ , but it’s healed. Red shivers, suddenly self aware in a way he kind of wishes he wasn’t.

Something is still seriously wrong with him. His thoughts are...taking too long, and he knows there’s stuff he _should_ be thinking about….but it just ain’t happening.

He glances at the doorway speculatively. It’s just a hole in the wall, but all he can see outside it is a bunch of fucking plants in the way like a screen. Mother nature being a shady bitch, as usual.

Red’s muzzily weighing the pros and cons of confronting the unknown beyond that doorway cotton-skulled, legless, and wearing nothing but a blanket, when Comic finally comes back in with a bundle of woven cloth. He sets it down next to Red, walks a few feet away, turns and sits on the floor with a groan. Red sucks his teeth, tries to look like something that bites the hand that feeds him. Not that he….he’s….not hungry, anyhow. He’s _not_. These fuckers ain’t gonna, he can’t let them...

What?

Red takes a deep breath and focuses his eyes again.

“the fuck kinda scam you trying to run on me here, whitey?” he hisses.

“we’re havin a cookout,” Comic drawls, unflappable. “thought you might like to join us for a lil bit.” His eyes subtly change focus. “hash out a few things, i guess.”

Red stares at him.

“it’s true.” Comic glances at the door. “you don’t smell it?”

Red realizes very suddenly he does not smell _anything_. Like, at all. No smoke or food, not Comic, not even himself. And Red’s gotta be pretty ripe by now. He thinks he keeps his alarm out of his expression, but Comic’s eyes flicker mysteriously.

“you go much longer without eating, you’re gonna dust no matter what paps does,” Comic says quickly, a tinge of unexpected desperation coming into his voice. “you feel it, right?”

Ok, so. That’s how it is. How Red’s feeling makes a little more sense now. He knows firsthand ideas you get when you’re starving are usually bad ones, and you can’t really think too good when it’s been too long. But it’s never….never been this bad.

“how long have i been here?” Red rasps.

“bout a month. or… probably not longer than six weeks.” He’s not bullshitting him. Red exhales slow and bracing.

“if you thought starvin’ me stupid would soften me up, you got another thing coming,” he growls. He gets confused enough by Comic’s baffled expression to prove himself wrong. Then a wave of dizziness sweeps his mind blank, and he feels like he’s putting his thoughts back where they go like scattered fridge magnets. Shit.

“you wouldn’t eat anything we gave you,” Comic says, then tilts his skull curiously. “don’t remember that part?”

Oh. Right. Red looks down at his carpals, sees the magic between’s misty-pale, sickly. More than just from being injured. Weird thing is, he doesn’t even feel hungry. Just feels floaty, like...he could just let go and fly right up into outer space.

“yeah, you gotta _eat_ something,” Comic repeats. “figure i’ll eat it first, you can see it’s ok. c’mon. paps is doing it up special.”

Red flinches at his brother’s name. But Comic means Sunshine.

Well.

If Sunshine made it.

Red nods jerkily.

“ok.” Comic looks relieved, and Red feels a flicker of...suspicion? He doesn’t know. It goes away.

“you probably wanna finish getting dressed first,” Comic adds. “though i guess, uh.” He snorts. “no one’s gonna make you cause they don’ give a shit. but you might get some branches stuck in there ‘f you’re not careful.” Comic looks like he’d have a fun time yukking it up about that, too. “might catch a few crabs, maybe. heh.”

Red picks up the bundle. First thing he pulls out is an airy seacotton top, twin to the one Comic’s got on without the pocket. A field of resistant magic fills out the front of Comic’s shirt, a gentle, generous swell that rests against the fabric without straining it. Fact is, it’s a fair bit smaller than Red’s. He always left his shirt open so humans couldn’t see how big his middle is. Fat pirate captains don’t inspire confidence when it’s time to get stabby, not that that shit matters anymore.

Red looks down at the woven shirt. If it’s made to Comic’s measurement, it’s going to be too tight for comfort. He doesn’t like going entirely without despite Edge’s ribbing to the contrary, especially in the back. But this ain’t Red’s first rodeo being a beggar, so he knows quite well he’s also a chooser. Even when he can’t afford to be, but.... He thinks he sets it aside discreetly, but Comic leans over and picks it up. He looks at Red for what feels like a long time.

Then he winks out, reminding Red to see if he can do that himself. Once again, there’s nothing there when he reaches for it. He feels empty and light, barely there at all. He briefly imagines himself just dissolving out in the spaces between everything else, and shudders so hard he rattles.

Maybe it’s for the best for right now.

When Comic winks back in, he’s got a different bundle.

“here’s yours,” he announces quietly. “paps cleaned it, but...” He trails off. Red’s hugging the bundle to his ribs with a bitten-off noise, but the magic in them feels too good and comforting to leave room for Red be embarrassed about it. He fingers the stolen lace of his shirt, the leggies more patch than cloth. Red’s as good with a needle as any sailor, and even better at weaving and knitting. Bone fingers that can bend in any direction do just fine in the absence of other tools, after all.

The seams are near invisible until you get close. But the shorts he was wearing when they got shat out on these foreign shores are still in there somewhere. Only a few threads left, maybe, but he feels their magic.

Then he pulls out the cape, presses his face into it and breathes. Can’t smell this either, but the magic of it flows into him nevertheless. Edge let him keep it because Red feels the emptiness of this place harder than Edge for some reason. It’s _rich_ with it, already makes him feel like he’s got feet on the ground, even when his head’s spinning.

“the dead fur thing, uh. rotted.” Comic looks awkwardly at the far wall. “paps tossed it.”

Red doesn’t bother responding. He muffles his grunt and takes another deep inhale, then manages to pull the cloth away from his face with a shaky sigh. He’s still all fucked up in the head, but having his own clothes back….helps.

_A connection._

Red’s eyes dart up briefly, long enough to see Comic doesn’t need an explanation. And when Red thinks about it...huh. He feels magic in Comic’s clothes, too; it’s not all his body. Lot stronger than in Red’s, but… thoughts slip away again. Red’s gaze lights on something else, and he tries to pull it together while he shrugs into his _own_ shirt, wriggles into his tight pants. Doesn’t know what to make of the careful new darns, so he just. Tries to file it away for later, and slips the cape around his shoulders. The hidden breakaway loop keeps it in place just fine, even without a collar.

“why bother with this?” Red asks, brandishing the single slipper that’s a duplicate of Comic’s pair. “what’s out there?” He uses it to point to the suddenly intimidating door.

“mm. sand’s no good for walking barebones all the time.” Comic wiggles his exposed toes. “pressure wears it down too quick, end up with these, uh. these lil sores.”

“ya don’t say.” Red stares at Comic flatly, scratching at the tore-up lower knob of his femur. Speaking of which. “so, you gonna carry me over the threshold? if you were gonna propose, you could at least a brought me my jewelry.” That wins him a quickly suppressed exhale of amusement.

“got you something for that, too,” Comic says, and presents him with a stick. Red’s got no idea where it came from, so he just assumes Comic must have pulled it out of his ass. It has straps and a cup on the end. Comic waggles it temptingly.

“not as fancy as you might be used to, but uh. it’ll getcha places.” He winks.

Red scowls at him, then snatches the peg. Cup’s padded well, at least. The strap arrangement’s identical to his old one, makes him wonder if they got that squirreled away somewhere too, along with his jewelry, and his… Red interrupts his fiddly buckling, fingers darting up sudden to his mouth. Yeah, ok, his tooth’s still there, and the ruby chip’s still firmly embedded in its setting. A little embarrassing he didn’t already know, but he has other shit on his mind.

“i didn’t steal your sneakers, either,” Comic chortles. “you can have the pretties back if you want. figured you’d wanna see if you can stand up on your own first.”

Red’s done buckling, so he aims his scowl back up at Comic as he gets to his feet, easy as pie. Must be nice. Comic just grins like an idiot and holds out his hand. Red takes it, grunts in surprise as Comic hauls him up like he weighs nothing. Then, as if that’s true, Red’s head just keep going. He just floats up to the ceiling, spinning around in orbit for a minute. When he descends, he’s panting and Comic’s hands are in his ribs, holding him up as he shudders weakly.

“h….hands off the merchandise....” Red growls, twitching weakly away. It doesn’t work. At least the leg’s comfy enough, now he can feel his limbs again.

“think i’ll wait til i’m sure you’re not gonna put another crack in your skull,” Comic says, low rumble thick with amusement and…..concern? Red’s soul-guts go uneasy with more than almost fainting. Comic’s awful solicitous for a jailor, and…

Shit. There’s seriously nothing Red hates more than not knowing what the fuck is going on. But it looks like that’s the hand today’s dealing him, so. He takes a deep breath, then straighten up and wriggles Comic’s hands away. He stays up, lifts his chin in challenge.

“take me wherever you’re _taking_ me, whitey,” he grates, trying to give him a dirty look. Not much response. Comic just shrugs and juts his girthy dome toward the doorway.

“we’re goin’ to a cookout,” he rumbles patiently. He says it weird and slow, like he really thought Red forgot. Then he shuffles his slow way out, leaving Red to either follow or lie back down and die on his own terms. Red growls, but he follows.

As soon as they get past the screen of plants and up a little path, Red stops. And so does Comic, like he was expecting it.

It’s a clearing with about fifteen neat, low dwellings in it, looking a lot more solid than his own “outhouse.” And there’s a few humans around, yeah, just normal folk doing the kinda shit Red heard plenty about from his crew. Mostly what they wished they were doing instead of being on a goddamned boat. There’s _kids_ here, several human children and one older than dirt, looking more than half asleep “watching” them. Another one nursing a cup of by a half-out fire in the...courtyard, he supposes. Someone else smoking a pipe full of something in their doorway.

And yeah, they’re all staring at Red now, about as hard as he’s staring at them.

Comic takes his hand out off his pocket, twigging Red’s jumpy reflexes, and that’s when he realizes he was already swaying. Apparently this is what’s in the fucking cove. That crashes down on him so sudden he sways again, then staggers away a step or two when Comic reaches out. Just some chumps here living their best life, apparently. And he’s been here for….six weeks or whatever, with no fucking clue they were out here. Not even wondering. He turns quick to glance at where he was, sees it’s tucked back and away from the rest with the screen of plants in the way on purpose. Like it’s….private. A buffer between him and the folks here, but not…shit.

It’s too much.

“hey,” Comic says under his breath, but gentle. “if you’re not up to it, i c’n bring...”

He trails off as a fat little human kid trudges right up to Red like he owes them money, close enough Red suppresses the urge to back up a step or two. Two littler kids are hiding behind the first, one of em scratching their naked ass with eyes wide as saucers.

The first crosses chubby arms, then cranes their neck to scowl up at Red. He ends up taking that step back.

“ _You_ the San _cousin_???”

It sounds like an accusation. Red gapes down at the child, then over at Comic. Who looks like he’s about to piss his pants.

“do i look like i speak fucking _english_?” Red asks, mortally offended. And yeah he _can_ , but. Still.

Comic scratches his suddenly itchy nasal cavity with a discreet knuckle, shoulders shaking as he eyes the lace on Red’s shirt.

“yeah, dude,” he says behind his fingers, only a little strained.

“Why you don’t the _leg_?!” The little meatsplat condescendingly indicates Red’s peg.

“why _you_ don’t find the fucking _well_ to fall down, timmy?” Red snarls, then staggers instead of taking a defensive stance as their fist draws back. Comic manages _no hitting!!_ in rapid fire Miskitu-Creole before giving in to his no longer suppressible laughter. The kid looks very disappointed about the no hitting circumstances but drops their hand, then has the fucking gall to spit on the ground.

“ _you’re_ the timmy, you ugly barracuda,” they growl, and Red only realizes his lunge was turning into a pratfall when Comic grabs him around the waist. The white-eyed jerk drags Red right through a shortcut and plops him onto loose beach sand with a whoop. It’s a shocking sensation when it’s someone else’s shortcut, and it takes him another few seconds to make his skull stop spinning. Red narrows a socket against the puff of grit when Comic crashes down next to him, then wiggles his ass til he’s leaning against a nearby tree.

“hoo….” Comic moans, wiping his sockets on a narrow shoulder as Red pants and tries to steady his thoughts again. “you know...i shoulda figured the first thing you’d do is try and fight a five year old,” he wheezes. “but somehow...i didn’t see it coming.”

Red stares at him, belated embarrassment slowly heating his face along with the sun, which also plucks painfully at his increasing headache. He crabwalks backwards into the shade even less gracefully than Comic had.

“that rotten crotchfruit had t’be at least eight,” he protests, and Comic howls.

Red sighs and hunches, then remembers to look around and assess his surroundings. Since Comic’s too busy yukking it up to be any kind of a proper guard. Not that he needs to be considering Red’s state, but….huh.

Sugarsand beach, right at the detritus-littered treeline. Further down and closer to the water, more humans than had been in the little...town or whatever, are fussing at a bunch of stuff over and around what’s probably fires. Hard to tell in the afternoon sun. Then one figure straightens, and Red sees that it’s Sunshine. He can’t help relaxing a little, then a bit more as he starts heading over. He’s wearing a ridiculous straw hat with a red rag tied around it, long and flowing down to his vertebrae to hold it in place. Same color as Red’s cape, nowhere near as big. There’s flowers stuck in around the crown of the hat, and Sunshine’s carrying two bowls in each hand. Red’s mouth is dry as a bone, because he still can’t smell anything.

“HAS HE BEEN BEHAVING, BROTHER?” Sunshine crows, then sets the bowls down next to Comic. Looks like some kinda soup. Sunshine puts his hands on his hips, then looks down at his smug weasel of a brother.

Red’s about to snarl something about talking over his head when Comic giggles, “he already squared off with chei.”

“HOW MOTIVATIONAL OF YOU!” The force of Sunshine’s grin doubles as it hits Red. “TRULY SEIZING YOUR FIRST DAY OUT OF BED IN WEEKS BY ENGAGING A HUMAN IN COMBAT!! DID YOU WIN?”

“not quite, paps,” Comic chortles before Red can answer.

“WELL, BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME!” Sunshine clasps his creepily long hands near his jaw, to all appearances filled with syrupy sympathy and the true spirit of sportskeletonship. “I’M SURE IT’S MERELY YOUR TEMPORARILY FRAIL STATE THAT PREVENTED VICTORY.”

“yeah,” Red manages, soundly defeated once again.

“WELL!! FAR BE IT FROM ME TO IMPOSE UPON YOUR SECRETIVE PLATONIC DATING!!”

Red gapes at him. Sunshine just nods in satisfaction, his big silly hat flopping along as he struts away surefooted on the shifting sand. Vaguely embarrassed, Red stares at the bowls next to Comic. All of a sudden….Red’s fucking ravenous. His mouth drops down into his jaw like a ton of bricks, wet and desperate. He can’t help parting his teeth, sucking the air in another vain attempt to scent something. Comics sees him panting at the food like a dying animal. He grabs up one of the bowls and leads it to his face like bait to make Red meet Comic’s gaze. He does, shivering.

Comic leans back, a hooded-socket smug expression between his tented legs as he tips the bowl at his teeth. There’s an ostentatiously exaggerated sucking liquid noise, then he sticks out his tongue to show Red a chunk of something. Comic pointedly swallows it as he winks and sets the bowl back down.

Red gives him a sour look as he snatches up the bowl himself.

He moans when he tastes what’s in it.

“fuck is this?” he manages between guzzling the contents, trying to chew each bit a few times before he sucks it down. The way their mouths work he doesn’t really need to, and with the fare he’s used to he doesn’t bother. Chewing mostly just makes the texture worse and the taste linger, but this is the kind of chow he’s cool with savoring. It’s astounding to eat something not blasting his mouth with preserving salt or sugar, or fiery spice to cover the taste of rot.

These flavors are delicate, and... _go_ together. S tars. He _tastes_ it. He was a little worried that might have gone the way of his sense of smell. Red shudders even as he slorps it down, tries not to wonder whether or not his _dick_ still fucking works.

“jus’ someone’s lil piggy stewed up in seawater n coconut milk,” Comic reports. “gotta ask paps what the chunks are, though.”

Red just grunts contentedly without stopping. Tastes like a slimy boiled potato, except _good_. Comic picks up another bowl before Red’s done his first, repeats the see-food, heh, process. Winks and holds it out just as Red sets his first bowl down.

Second round’s just as good. Red gurgles in frustration when his mouth starts objecting to how much and how fast he’s eating, a few runnels spilling through under his jaw since his mouth can’t process it instantly. He misses monster food. But just because his mouth’s busy (heh) doesn’t mean the gears stop churning. Red’s not all in on this little shindig, but now that he’s got some fresh air and is downing another bowl of Comic’s sloppy seconds…a lot of it makes more sense than he thought at first, maybe.

Red eats his third bowl slower, uses his fingers to dig out the chunks to eat his favorites first. He hasn’t really thought about this at _all_. Comic’s just grinning and watching Sunshine do some cartwheels. He chuckles softly as his brother picks up a human on his shoulders and runs down to the harder sand nearer the waves, trotting and monologuing along the waterline with his captive audience. Red watches him watch, tries to go over the facts.

The trade with Doucet went sideways, blew up a bunch of barrels filled with gunpowder. Edge got hurt too bad for Red to help. Poxy John, Crease, and Roger got deaded at the beach, and he saw John bite the deck right...right before… Red grunts softly, his headache wriggling like a snake in his skull. Red’s leg split, he screamed, and then he…something _hit_ his _head_.

Comic looks back at Red, tastes the final bowl for him as he uses his brothy fingers to check. There’s a new scar, right down where his spine attaches in the back. He _hit_ his _head_. Red’s got no way to know how much of his slow thinking is gonna be permanent. Makes more sense how he was acting, and how these two have been treating him. Because Red forgets shit. Well, now he’s gotta try and remember. Last thing before he got here.

All was lost, his….Edge was _dying_ and so was Red, ship got sunk with all aboard. But these two decided to fish em out of the drink, or wherever they ended up. Red forces his mind to work through the headache, but it’s no good. He can’t remember jack shit before then. Barely remembers the last…. _six_ fucking _weeks_.

Red takes the last bowl in silence that feels chilly despite the humid heat, glad Comic’s not running his mouth. He’s trying to get a handle on this, but from everything he can suss...Comic and Sunshine are trying to get Red back on his foot as best they can.

Yeah, they’ve got his brother squirreled away somewheres, and he’s more than ready to wring Comic’s bony neck if he doesn’t get some visual confirmation on him soon. But Red glances again at his scabby knuckles, feels a few memories of….rage? Pain and fear, yeah, a lotta screaming and punching the ground. He’s got a feeling there’s a lot more of that in there somewhere, waiting for Red to let it surface if he gets a chance. When Comic’s not watching him, maybe. No way to know if they’ll ever let him alone, but...

But based on how they’re treating Red… his eyes light on Sunshine, bringing the slightly dazed human safely back to the cooking area. Sunshine told him Edge is here. That he’s alive, but hurt real bad. Another shred floats up out of the sewage of Red’s memory: Sunshine telling Red he has ‘episodes’. He feels the ground underneath his fist again.

Okay, so. He believes Sunshine. He still hates them for keeping his brother hidden.

Sunshine comes back over while Red’s finishing up, and he’s got some kinda big, ash-covered bundle with him. Red’s still thinking hard as he sets it down, so other than a quick grunt of acknowledgment, he stays quiet while these two weirdos do their slapstick routine. Red’s done his dinner by the time Sunshine heads off again.

He looks at Comic.

“so. tell me that piece a shit is dead.”

Comic just cocks a browbone at him.

“who?”

“doucet,” Red snaps. “the fuckin’...guy on the other _boat_!!”

“no idea what you’re talking about,” Comic says smooth as goose shit.

Red narrows his sockets.

“don’t play cute w’ me,” he hisses. “you know there was another fucking ship, how you think the _boneripper_ sunk? you think i did it myself??”

Comic shrugs. Red sees his namesake for a hot second, then decides to try a different direction.

“where’s _my_ humans, then?”

“ain’t _your_ humans,” Comic answers quick and easy. Red’s magic roils, uneasily trying to incorporate the rush of new substance Red just dumped into it. Red licks the backs of his teeth, mouth still out like it might come back up. It doesn’t. Red’s mouth finally goes back between his bones with a huff, bitchily accepting that the food’s staying inside Red for now. His skull swims again for a minute, but when it steadies….so does Red. He studies Comic’s face very carefully.

Hmm.

Comic already _decided_ what he’s gonna tell him, and what he _ain’t_. It’s up to Red to figure out which questions to ask.

“what happened to the humans that were on the _boneripper_?” he goes with.

“about half didn’t make it,” Comic reports evenly. Red grinds his teeth, but Comic’s got no way to know who’s who, or care for that matter. “some of ended up on the other side with some folks what don’t precisely get along with us.” Red knows how that goes. “a few went fuckin’ feral or something out that way,” he waves a hand vaguely to the east, “won’t let anyone near em. fine, since no one really goes to those spots anyhow. we got food n shit here. well, some folks are annoyed about it cause they like grabbin eggs out that way or whatever, but...” Comic’s look turns evaluating. “some of em are….around-ish. you might see em, though i don’t know how likely it is.”

Comic’s eyes slide away from his.

“but they, uh. they don’t wanna see _you_.”

Welp.

Red hopes this soul-scalded feeling isn’t visible on his face, but it probably is.

“yeah, well. dunno if you noticed, but i ain’t much to look at,” he says roughly.

Comic eyes him strangely. He neither agrees nor disagrees, which kinda makes Red wish he was a little more himself for a second. Then he just plops back down into the idling despair which seems to be pretty much all he’s got room for right now. Comic turns his attention to the ashy thing his brother left next to them. He brushes off a spot, then unfolds the coarse leaves from overtop to release a big cloud of steam. Oh. It’s food. Which Red suddenly learns he can _now smell_ , and he can’t stop himself from leaning forward. He sucks air into his skull again as his sockets list; it’s something sweet and fatty, and his whole body sings with wanting it. His mouth drops hard and wet enough that it’s almost painful.

Comic peels back a more delicate layer of leaves from underneath, revealing something soft and pale orange. His mouth twitches as Red digs his fingers right in there, visibly fighting the urge to broaden his neutral grin. Red can guess why; humans’ reactions when Red reaches into fire or lets freezing water splash right through his ribcage always gets Red right where it counts, too.

“what _is_ this crap, anyhow?” Red mutters conversationally as he scoops out a firm hunk of it. He can play best friends at the tea party if it’ll get more answers out of his freaky evil twin. Whose existence is weird as balls, but apparently Red had time to get used to it before he was actually able to process it. Now what he needs to do is figure out what the hell is going on, and why Comic bothered with any of this. Why he’s _still_ bothering. If Comic and Sunshine got here the same way, and what it has to do with Red and Edge.

“cassava pone,” Comic smirks. “got them orange shits in there too. sweet potatah.”

Red can’t hold back a little noise of enjoyment when he slots it between his sharp teeth. Fatty and rich in a much more pleasant way than the oily fish and half-rancid tallow he’s used to, the sweetness less sickly than sugar-laden preserves. It tastes _f_ _resh_. Not a lot of that when you live out of barrels and casks.

“heh.” Red glances up; Comic seems pleased. “paps has his ways.” He watches Red nibbling and licking gummy goodness from between his distals and proximals. “use the inside leaf if you wanna keep your joints clear. tasty enough, i guess. wraps up nice, jus’ like a lil burrito.”

Now Red’s remembering bits and pieces of his whole not-eating-anything problem. It’d be less embarrassing if he hadn’t guzzled down the drug Sunshine gave him every time, then ping-ponged back to being convinced these two were going to _secretly_ drug him when he’d already been completely helpless. He tries to remember his logic there. From the slivers he has available, he’d mostly been hoping it _was_ poison that might actually end it. Yeesh.

The more he eats, the clearer and more stable his thoughts feel. Comic’s not even looking at him right now, he’s smiling faintly as his brother explains something to the humans that requires a lot of bouncing and gesturing. The humans seem very used to that, and answer like it’s a normal conversation. Red supposes it is. Red digs out another hunk and just shoves the whole thing in his mouth this time. He presses his tongue against it to savor the thick-solid texture, and…. part of it dissolves.

Red stops dead. His body _knows_ this richness. Probably the reason he feels like he can’t stop eating it.

“this’s part magic,” he whispers. His shocked eyes meet Comic’s steady gaze; Comic looks back at his brother.

“paps did it up special,” he repeats. Red’s eyes follow to Sunshine doing his schtick, then back down to the hunk of pone in his hand. Red eats it slower, licks his fingers and takes more with a shaky exhale. This is helping even more than the soup did. Sunshine can make whatever that drug was he gave Red while he was...whatever he was before now. He can _cook_. He can make magic shit that ain’t just attack constructs.

He can _heal_.

“woulda though you had better shit to do than tryin’ ta get me to eat my vegetables,” Red says to Comic carefully.

Comic’s eyes dart back to Red. He laughs, but there’s a bitter edge to it.

“i don’t have anything better to do til we haul up that wreck a yours,” he says quietly.

“never said you could have any of my shit,” Red hisses, despite the pang of alarm Comic’s admission sends through him.

He knows about the machine, then. But if he’s already got what he wants, it don’t make no damn sense why he’s keeping Red and Edge along with it. Then he keeps eating because it’s there and it’s good.

“mmm. wonder how many folks said the same to you.” Comic watches him eat for another minute, then dips in himself. Red blushes, realizing he forgot the taste testing thing. Well, he’s still beat to shit, shakylegged and half cocked now, isn’t he. But more than that, Red’s situational status needle’s been recalibrating so often, it’s basically a useless buffering wheel at this point. Red thought his status was ‘captured and imprisoned.’ Comic’s _acting_ like he’s been waiting impatiently for some townie lush at Grillby’s to sober up after a barfight enough for him to get a straight answer on who started it.

(Edge would scream at him for making excuses.)

“don’t think either of us cares to discuss where the machine came from, huh?”

Red swallows a mouthful of what’s suddenly glue.

(He wishes Edge was screaming at him for making excuses right now.)

“….k. let’s just both know what we know about it.” Comic’s eyes go hard for a second. “….for now.”

Red shivers hard with that scared-fish feeling as invisible darkness passes overhead.

“what the fuck do you _want_ from me, whitey?” Red bleats without meaning to. He swallows reflexively, his mouth still sitting in his jaw like lead.

“hey, i didn’t even know you _existed._ ” Comic licks his fingers, avoiding Red's desperate gaze. He didn’t bother to eat his vegetables either. “it was just a barely sketched out hypothesis, okay? i got a lot of those.”

Red’s abruptly sharp focus hones in on the corner of Comic’s grin. He sees it _twitch_. Comic goes still, and a few key bits of info slot into place. Apparently this food does a body good, and does a mind the same. He appreciates the lube, ‘cause his is getting fucked right now.

“ _you_ fuckin’ did this!” Red hisses incredulously. That twitch screams _guilt_ , setting this whole situation in a different light. Red doesn’t know how, or _why_ , or what the _fuck_ , but Comic did something that resulted in all of them ending up in this starforsaken place and time. “you, ya fu-, you _caused_ this!!”

Comic shuts his sockets and leans back against the tree again.

“yeah,” he grunts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 


	7. Cast Aside The Weary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Gregory Alan Isakov - That Sea, The Gambler](https://youtu.be/UhBtXMOWPBM)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comic’s _yeah_ happens right before the point Red can’t control the urge to slap his shit or die trying. Which right now has about even odds.

“ _why_?”

“it was an accident.” Comic’s expressionless.

Red hates that he knows Comic’s telling the truth, hisses, “ain’t that _convenient_ ,” anyways.

“not especially, no,” Comic replies without moving or opening his sockets.

“why the fuck would what you did affect _us_?”

“no idea.”

“since you knew we were out there, why the fuck didn’t you let us _in_? to talk at least??”

Comic does nothing.

“we ain’t the first you came across?” Red grates. He tries not to give away his sudden, piercing anxiety when Comic’s grin twitches again. Guilt. “what, you fucking rub em out or something?”

Comic forces his face blank again, and the rest of Red’s air just goes right out of him.

Fucks sakes. He _did_.

Red checks him again, and Comic’s sockets open as if he knew Red would do that. Sadness in his eyes, no LV to speak of. Comic did it the old fashioned way. Played by the rules. They were just that far gone.

Again, sets this situation in context. Red hates that it makes their decision to keep him away from his own brother make more sense, especially in Red’s previous….state. So caught up in not trusting them, didn't really look in the other end of the glass.

“your bro know about-”

“don’t _you_ fuckin’ worry bout what my brother knows,” Comic hisses, and Red jumps as the focus in his left eye burns for a searing, chilling half-second.

Red decides to regroup, eats some more of the magic stuff. Comic joins in, and they both think their own thoughts. Red’s get clearer the more he eats. Eventually there’s only one question left, so Red asks it.

“why are you bothering with me, chuckles?”

“cause i think we want the same thing.”

Red stares, struck dumb remembering his delirious observation that Comic save him for a reason. Now that he’s processing things at maybe 25 percent capacity instead of one percent, Red can see past the kneejerk fear of being turned into dustmeal sausage to realize Comic doesn’t want him for spare parts. Only one reason to nurse him back to health besides a guilty conscience, and that’s because needs Red to _do_ something.

Red can’t stop the sweat from breaking out across his skull all at once. Genuine relief for the first time since….well. Red can’t keep it out of his expression, but it doesn’t matter. Much.

Red’s got _leverage_. Not as much as he will once he figures out _why_ , but this is a hand Red can actually fucking play. If Comic wanted the machine, he’d have it. For all intents and purposes he _does_ ; Red knows it takes two to lift it, but he’s got Sunshine. He doesn’t know why he doesn’t just have _him_ help. Huh. That’s actually a juicier tdibit than he thought, now he can actually _think_.

Maybe it ain’t nonstop cake and blowjobs here in Margaritaville after all. Maybe these bros got beef, but they have their own way of showing it. Red hadn’t considered that….but for some reason, the idea doesn’t give him as much satisfaction as he expected. A place to drive a wedge is a good thing, but he just….well. Whatever. Red watches Sunshine do a literal cartwheel, then glance back over his shoulder at Red. Red’s vision is still as good as ever, so he catches his wink.

Red _should_ already be tearing this place apart trying to find Edge. But Sunshine says he’s safe, he’s being taken care of. Red’s the first to say words are empty things, but here Red sits as whole as they found him, healed, clean (he’s realizing now he can smell things again), clothed, legged, fed. Sitting across from someone at least pretending to answer his questions.

“so,” Red says to Comic quietly, eventually. “what’s this thing you say we both want?” He leers, trying to make it a double entendre. Comic ignores that, scoffs softly to himself. He glances up, and those white eyes hit like a pair of snowballs to the face.

“the machine’s still where you left it, but we both know it ain’t the whole thing. there’s pieces missing.”

Red freezes.

“mine came too,” Comic says very, very quietly. “yours has parts mine doesn’t.”

Red stares. His sticky hands shake a minute before he stills them through sheer force of will. Which he suddenly has again. Amazing.

“what the hell are you saying ta me right now?” he whispers.

“we gotta put em together, take stock. see if there are enough plates to get it up and running for real. not just jury rigging it. _fixing_ it.”

“i’m starting to wonder if we both know what we know after all,” Red grates.

“dunno if you noticed, but i got the whole ‘mysteriously deflecting all inquiries as to my origins’ thing going on,” Comic drawls, unflapped.

“that so.” Red stares at Comic flatly. “how about you stop winding me up and just spill whatever beans you’re _going_ to.”

Comic’s sidelong glance is evaluating. “you know anything about frisk?”

“you already had your chance to cavity search me,” Red says, “but hey, you ask me nice, might consider giving ya another go.”

Comic’s grin remains unamused.

“frisk’s a human that gets underground, gets the barrier gone.” He huffs, and his expression does something complicated. “…most a the time, anyhow. problem is….it doesn’t do any good.”

“no barrier seems like a good thing to me.”

“oh? are you liking your stay outside it so far?”

He eyes Red’s leg pointedly, and Red rolls the points in his sockets skyward.

“how bout you just _tell_ me why it ain’t a good thing to get a lil fresh air and sunshine, even if a buncha humans are sharin’ it.”

“cause every. last. time. we get up there,” Comic whispers, eyes guttering out, “they nuke us right off the goddamn face of the earth.” He huffs shakily. “don’t care how many of their own they kill, either. just the cost of doing business.”

Red’s a lot of things. Dumb ain’t one of em, and he has a hard time thinking any of him could make it a hobby. Comic’s haunted expression rings true.

“shit,” Red manages sweatily.

“shit’s more than whats left of us,” Comic grunts. His eyes waver back into existence grudgingly. “they don’ even have to get close to ebott to do it. push a button, boom. no more monsters.”

Red feels a frantic surge of emotions well up at the mention of Ebott. Maybe Comic knows where it is. It’s obvious Comic went for a different tack then Red, holed up with the machine to see what he could do from here rather than trying to take it to the right spot. Maybe he could weasel it out of him, maybe… Red abruptly recalls that he knew the name “Ebott” himself, but not anything about its location on surface geography. Also his ship’s sunk, men dead or MIA, his brother….well. Red’s weak spark of mental energy dissolves back out into the numb despair that seems to be Red’s idling state since he woke up for good.

“coulda stayed underground,” Red says. “seems like wherever you came from’s a lot nicer than what we’re used to.”

“not nicer,” Comic says heavily. “jus’ different.”

“oh, really? you got a fuckin crazy asshole on the throne ordering culls every time the lv median gets too high? kids icing each other over fuckin bragging rights?”

Comic’s grin sours, and his eyes grow hard at the edges.

“well. i guess _you_ could think of this as a free vaycay, then.”

“free for you, maybe,” Red barks sharply. “cost me and my bro an arm and a leg.”

Comic gapes at him. Then….he fucking _laughs_.

“we really are the same guy, eh?”

“fuck you.”

“fuck you more.”

Red takes a deep breath. He’s got fucking standards, dammit. At least when it comes to insults.

“well.” Red sucks his teeth bitterly. “least _you_ got where you were headed.”

“i wasn’t trying to _go_ anywhere.” Comic’s eyes flicker and dim. “just trying to see if we could find a place. _looking_. not _going_.”

“how the hell could you fuck up that bad?” Red asks, genuine curiosity coming through in his voice despite him. “i mean…?”

Comic shoots him a sincerely aggravated glare.

“i dunno, red, how’d _you_ fuck up being a pirate king that bad?”

Touche.

Red clears his throat, looks for something else to talk about. Sunshine’s pretty good for that. Looks like he’s digging a hole, singing some kinda...song? His voice is worse than Edge’s, and Red gives up trying to pick out any kind of melody after a while. The lyrics are long and complicated though, something about breaking someone’s fingers into splinters and making them claw at the ceiling of their grave? Red makes a mental note to ask Sunshine for a rendition later to add it to his own repertoire, even though he’s not willing to rely on his memory yet. It’s just nice to make a decision that isn’t important for a change.

“that’s some ditty yer bro’s hollering,” Red says mildly, trying to lighten things up a little. “th’ hell is he trying to _do_ , anyhow?”

Comic chuffs a short laugh. “…nothing? he’s drunk.”

Red stares at Comic, then over at Sunshine.

“paps brought out the skelly melly today ta celebrate,” Comic says in a pleased, conspiratorial tone. “figured i’d wait til we’re done here...but i’m guessing now your head’s finally straight, you….” He trails off, expression mirroring Red’s surprise. “what?”

Red shakes his head, the memory of Sunshine’s reticence flowing up to the surface. Remembers he promised not to tell Comic….but Comic obviously already knows he makes it. This is something else. He can tell Comic’s not gonna let it go, but instead of asking Red anything, he sighs.

“shoulda figured he’d keep you tamped down no matter what i fucking thought,” he grumbles. “no _wonder_ it took you so long to come up out of it.” Comic’s shaking his skull, darting looks at his brother’s back. “yeah….i figured he told you not not tell me. and you didn’t, so good on you, but….took you longer to get your head in the game, cause it makes everything slower.”

“huh?”

Comic takes a hand out and taps his frontal bone. “makes this run slower. makes you heal slower too, but it hurts less.” He shakes his head. “he had to take turns with you and your bro, and it’s not like we had a way to know what _you_ would have wanted, okay? but paps…..he couldn’t take hearing you scream like that.” He sighs. “neither could i, i guess,” he grunts under his breath.

Red flushes, and for some reason, so does Comic. Comic rasps fingers over a socket to cover it, wiggling a distal phalanx in the corner.

“look. ‘m not trying to be best friends. we don’t have to like each other. but we want the same thing.”

“and what’s that?” Red says, quiet and dangerous. He’s flustered.

“would you really wanna go back from where you came from if you had another choice?” Comic’s magic settles slowly back beneath the surface of his bones instead of tinting his face cyan-yellow at the surface. Red waits and watches. He hadn’t _been_ trying to go back where he came from, and he figured Comic knows that. He had been trying to get the machine to Ebott, send humans down there to find what they’d find, and then pop the top off. Reduce the _space_ between them to get some wiggle room in the _time_ category, working with the parts of the machine he had. Proximity matters when you go that route.

“my bro got you up and running again,” Comic continues. “he says he can get your bro the same…not good as new,” he adds reluctantly, and Red feels a pang of anger-fear. He’s got a better grip on it now than he did before, at least, stuffs it back in the feelings pit. “you know the arm’s gone for good,” Comic says quietly, with a gentleness Red didn’t expect. Red just nods jerkily, and Comic continues. “but at least where you’re at. it’s just gonna take a fuckin’ age.”

“nah, my bro’s quick healer. an age is how long it’s taking _you_ to get to the fuckin’ _point_.”

“we could just stay here forever,” Comic drawls unflappably, eyeing him sidelong. “got food and company, got our bros. Feels lonely and twitchy all the time,” Red knows he’s talking about the constantly aching absence of magic, “but hey. it’s a living.”

Red growls, getting more pissed off by the second.

“you catch my drift, right?” Comic continues, unimpressed. “i was trying ta find a way to change what happens. see if there was a way to make it so humans didn’t start fucking with that bomb shit in the first place. killing each other like they already do, except they’d make it so they don’t even have to _see_ you to kill you. it was just another idea on the list, but…i had to change the settings.” Comic closes his sockets for a second, takes a bracing breath. “don’t remember what happened next too good.”

“yeah, yeah, ended up here, shit went south, did what ya had to,” Red says hurriedly. There’s some things he just _doesn’t think about,_ and he’s not about to compare notes. “would ya get to the fuckin’ _point_?”

“figured i’d try and see if i could change the course of things from here, but i got no way to do that on my own. thought i blew it for good, then i started wondering. what if i brought em _here_?

Same idea Red had had. Get the underground empty, bring everyone together, get back a little of what got stolen.

“you wanna put our heads together and see if we can get _all_ our people back home here.” Yeah, Red’s people back home might not be what Comic’s expecting, but they’re _his_. He’s not about to leave them in the shit. Not Alphys, Not Undyne, not Grillby or Tori. Even Ass-gore deserves to see the sun one more time before Red strangles the life out of him with his own hands for what he did.

Comic inclines his skull a careful inch, watching Red like a hawk.

“i gotta think about it,” Red mutters quick.

“yeah, well. hope you can think faster than you been, cause the plates are gonna rot if we leave em in the salt much longer.”

Red can’t help glancing at Sunshine’s back, and Comic’s face closes.

Okay. He won’t help get the ship and what’s in it back topside for his own reasons, so Red’s gotta chip in if it’s getting done.

“welp. hate to break it to ya, but-”

“you’ll get better the more you eat,” Comic interrupts, taking another hunk of pone. “so why don’t you go ahead and finish your dessert like a good boy.”

Red does, and they actually finish the massive wad of pone, leave the veggies where they lie. He stuffs his face until his body feels almost as full as his mind is now, and exhaustion follows quick on the heels of satiation.

“think ‘m done for today,” Red grunts.

“well, i'm pooped too, so. let’s head back regular style,” Comic suggests.

“you’re gonna make me _walk_?” Red puts on his most mortally wounded expression, aims a wooden mock-kick at Comic. “ol pegleg mcgee?” Comic doesn’t even pretend to dodge. Spoilsport.

“might wanna learn the lay of the land,” Comic suggests, then groans to his feet and holds out his hand like before. “you know. so once your juice comes back, you don’t take a shortcut into a fucking rock or something.”

Red sighs, gives him a baleful glare.

“this counts as torture,” Red mutters, then stumbles dramatically as he gains his feet. No dizzy spells this time. “you’re _torturin_ ’ me, whitey,” Red grates, irritated that Comic doesn’t even have to shift his feet no matter how Red yanks on him. “’m hardly outta my sickbed, almost _died_ , spent a month in a fuckin _coma_ , you...”

Red’s narrative continues through the majority of the trip back, which turns out to be less than a quarter mile. Comic stops so Red can stare some more once they get to the courtyard.

“we got a real mixed bag a folks here,” Comic offer unprompted. “turns out not all humans are the same. who’s a thunk it, right?”

“they do what you say?” Red asks again.

Comic’s exhale is frustrated.

“we _live_ here,” he emphasizes. “so do they. most of em already had a bellyful of being told what to do. they just want someplace to live their lives away from all that shit. have a few kids, maybe.” He eyes Red, juts his chin to the east. “you know what they do ta folks out that way.”

Red growls involuntarily. Once he got outta Dodge with his bro, about half the humans he met had the scars to show for it, and the intel to go with it. Stories like Sugar Jaques’s and Tibam’s, ‘monsters’ like Doucet calling the shots. Red’s ship wasn’t paradise, but it was a lot better than that.

He watches the humans here, more than earlier. Huh. Some of em looking like they just woke up, even though the afternoon’s getting old. Taking their time about whatever they’re doing, not looking too worried about anything. Talking about the weather, the party on the beach, asking after people, making plans to go kill some pigs further inland. Kinda place Red always...wished he had. Place to rest.

Now he’s here, and the cost wasn’t worth it.

Red frowns, catching a thread of conversation that’s definitely about Sunshine.

“...she?”

“heh. yeah. lot of em call paps ‘she’ cause he’s useful n strong.” He indicates a house...no, the rows of plants near it. Red’s noticing now they’re neat and tidy, a carefully maintained bare space between each plant. “jus’ that lil patch feeds half these folks. they call me ‘he’ cause i don’t do anything but eat, sleep, n complain,” Comic reports indifferently, scratching his ass over the woven skirt. From the front.

Red supposes it’s fair enough, since this is no ship, no rules about men. Humans have some real weird ideas about that stuff, and they’re all different so he’s never bothered trying to parse it. Red’s eyes briefly follow a shirtless, stocky human in a sarong much like Comic’s but no top, a roll strapped to their back bristling with razorpoint boarspears.

“eat n sleep up til it’s time ta kill something,” Red grunts warily. Everyone knows this cove’s occupied by something that isn’t human, and he has a hard time imagining this softened version of his bro, already a softie at heart, sinking ships full of screaming humans. Comic’s’s lazy grin doesn’t budge an inch.

“….unless you’re tellin’ me your lil puddin’ pie’s bringing em down for you,” Red adds, trying to provoke him.

“he won’t kill em or eat the meat, but he’ll cook it.” Comic evades smoothly. “i eat em.”

Red’s suddenly sick of his shit, another wave of tiredness making him even crankier. All that walking, no wonder.

“you waiting a goodnight kiss on my doorstep before you get shithammered wi’ your bro?” Red growls.

Comic’s grin sharpens. “it’s my turn to keep an eye on you.”

“so, it’s like _that_ , huh?” Red’s too tired for this pissing contest, but. He heads across the clearing, angled towards the plant screen with his sick hut behind it. Comic shuffles right along with him, still his jailor. Whatever. Maybe his cat’s back from whatever it does when it’s not sneezing in Red’s mouth. “we’re buddies now, but the kind where you gotta keep an eye on me? well, i guess that makes us—fwup--!!”

Red’s interrupted by his own teeth clacking together, falling down hard on his ass because his leg just buckled without warning. Or unbuckled, or…wait a _fucking second_.

Red snatches it up, then twists his head around like a viper.

“I think _you_ fell down the ‘well’, Timmy!” the fucking meatsplat from earlier crows from a doorway, brandishing the tiny belt knife they just used to cut Red’s straps. Red’s mouth drops open, staring. How the hell--? He didn’t even _see_ the kid!

“chei,” Comic says, quiet and neutral from behind Red and over his head. “that’s not nice.” The kid sobers quickly, hunching their shoulders as Comic continues. “think you two made a bad first impression,” he says, still talking to the kid. Theoretically. “why don’t you come over and try again?” Chei looks daggers at Red, but listens to Comic. Red continues sitting there humiliated as they approach, since he can’t do anything else.

Once the child is within arm’s length Comic takes a breath to speak, but Red lunges quick as an adder. He’s already got the kid’s knife away from them, flipped backhand and featherlight-steady along their jugular. Red's pretty good at human anatomy at this point. Slit em lengthwise and there's nothing to be done. Red grins, feeling calmer already.

Chei freezes.

“might wanna reconsider your choices here, pal,” Comic says chilling-calm behind him. He feels several constructs coming into existence, hears the dangerous silence that follows. No one here is talking or moving now. Red just keeps grinning, doesn’t take his eyes from the kid’s. But it's what he sees there that makes him falter.

They’re huge and scared…but not as scared as they _should_ be.

A nostalgic ache flares hot and sudden in Red’s crusty soul. This kid doesn’t know they can die, because no one ever hurt em in a way that _made_ them know. Red’s sockets widen, realizing this kid’s never even seen the back of someone’s _hand_.

They have absolute faith that all their people here…Comic included….will protect them. Even looking down the length of their own stolen knife, Red can see it right on their face. Scared, hell yeah, but still ready to bust in a shop’s windows and redistribute the wealth. Ready to take a shitty, mean adult down a peg, put him flat on his ass. Scared enough to get out of arm’s length, but dumb enough to stay and gloat.

Red gives himself another second to savor the look he misses from his little brother’s eyes, doesn’t think about the shit he did to keep it there as long as he could. Seeing it again, here and now….reminds him that it was worth it. Reminds him this hellhole's more than Red's sunken thimble, has more people in it than one ship flung around a treacherous body of water can hold. That the world is bigger than the space inside Red's thick fucking skull, if he takes a minute to actually _look around_.

Red exhales slow and shaky. He wasn’t expecting that.

Red wipes his cheeks on his lace, then takes the hand the kid had brandished the knife with into his own hard phalanges. He brings those short, chubby digits to the handle, and Red guides them through a complex maneuver that makes the weapon switch hands. A long arc Red pretends to interrupt before makes the kid counter, a slo-mo jab that ends up with the blade slotted neatly between Red’s cervical vertebrae instead.

He can feel the dull edge against the flow of magic that holds him together, more than enough to take him out with bad intentions behind it.

“you put me on my ass, kiddo,” he says quietly in the creole Comic spoke to them in before. The meatsplat looks more scared now than they did with the knife at their own throat, but Red’s grip stays firm when they try and move it away. “you know what that means?”

They shake their head, eyes like saucers.

“means i gotta show you how to use this thing for _real_ ,” he grins. “folks are gonna underestimate you, cause you’re little.” Red huffs, grin softening with the irony despite him. “that’s how you got _me_ , and you can make that do your chores for you. won’t work on me a second time, but it don’t have to.” Red keeps the kid’s fist closed around the knife, but moves the blade until it’s in front of Red’s face. He guides it to the side of his own socket, moves them how he’d do to take an eye.

“you go around knifing folks, you gotta make sure you do what you _meant_ to do.” Red guides the blade beneath his chin, mimes a short jab upward that makes them jump again. “…no _accidents_.” Comic makes a noise behind him, but he doesn’t give a fuck. Red’s having a goddamn moment, and Comic can lick Red’s crusty coccyx and like it.

Red takes the blade between his teeth, right against the special slot in his tooth that ain’t gold. Clamps down and grips it; the kid jumps the he gives it a hard yank. Flips it and repeats; this time there’s a spark. Blade’s the size of the kid’s thumb, but steel is steel. Good.

Red’s mouth dropped with all the fuss. He sticks his tongue out and nicks it with the now-sharp blade. Dots it with his magic.

Then he lets the kid’s hand go.

“when i’m back on my _foot_ , you find me. if you don’t, _i’ll_ fucking find _you_. you don’t want that.” Red beams almost as bright as Sunshine. “in the meantime, you got a sharp fucking knife. so ya better be more _careful_ with it from now. you _ken,_ meat-bag?”

Surprised awe flares in the kid’s eyes as they nod fervently. They hold out the knife like they’re showing Red something important, then carefully, almost ceremonially tuck it into a sheath on the braided cord around their waist. It’s the only thing they’re wearing, so Red probably should have fucking _noticed_ it earlier. Red’s expecting them to run their mouth, but instead they take a step back and make a complex gesture.

Then they run away as fast as they can.

Heh. First smart thing Red’s seen the kid do. When he finally looks at Comic the constructs are gone, and he’s vibrating with barely-suppressed hilarity. The rest of the humans look a mix of appalled, impressed, or bored. Well, they had their journeys, Red had his.

“what the fuck are you laughing at?” Red asks, irritation returning as he has to crane his neck. Comic’s staring after the rustling brush where the kid took off. “what was that thing the kid did?”

“…means she’s gonna marry you when she grows up,” Comic wheezes, then heaves with the stupid-ass howling laugh from earlier. Oh. Red looks back at the humans around the fire. The one with all the spears is giving him a _real_ dirty look. Comic’s still laughing, and suddenly all that piss and vinegar runs right back out. Red sags where he sits, and Comic sobers.

“i changed my mind,” Red warbles weakly.

Comic looks like he wants to ask him if he’s okay. Lucky for him, he doesn’t.

“bout what?”

Red lifts his arms up like a tired toddler.

“take me back to the beach. i need a fucking drink.”

“you sure about that?” Comic looks increasingly concerned.

“i just got my ass handed to me by a sassy fetus with a potato peeler,” Red growls impatiently. “you _really_ gonna make me live with that sober?”

In the end Comic puts Red over by the fire with the rest of the beach party, and Sunshine brings Red a cup. He also brings more soup, and some nuts, and some little toasty brown bits that smell good. Turns out to be water, and Red tosses it in the fire when Sunshine’s not looking. The humans keep at what they’re doing, and other than some stares when Comic tells Sunshine what happened, they continue ignoring Red. Comic asks for some “skelly melly”, and his brother does something on the other side of the fire Red can’t see very well. No matter how hard he squints. Well, must just be the sun going down.

“JUST ONE,” he cautions as he returns with two cups, then looks up at his brother narrowly. “ONE!!” He barks. Comic nods and takes his own cup, deigns to take a seat next to Red. Hands the peg with its cut straps to his brother.

“I’LL FIX THIS WHEN, WHEN I’M...TOMORROW!” Sunshine nods with aplomb. He weaves away brandishing it, starts making whoosh noises and slicing the air.

“he’s pretty _tomorrow_ alright,” Red mutters, then downs his cup. It’s just as sickly-sweet as he remembers, and his magic roils for a second with the memory. Then his mind just sort of...dilates, yeah, gets a little less busy for a second. He takes a deep breath and another bowl of pork stew. Balances out, and now he just feels….mellow. Melly. Heh.

“feels nicer when you’re not about to bite it, huh?” Comic says, and Red blinks over at him. He’s flushed again, watching people do their thing and eating some of the fried brown bits. Red steals some from him, then loudly hocks his mouthful into the fire when he realizes they’re toasted grubs, tosses the rest but Comic’s hand darts out to catch them. Tibam made those once, said they’re ‘comfort food’. They don’t taste bad, but the texture’s nasty as hell inside.

“what, you too good for bugs all of a sudden?” Comic chuckles.

“i ain’t a good person,” Red blurts without meaning to.

“okay,” Comic says, visibly unimpressed. Red’s face feels hot, but it’s probably just being so close to the fire. It’s not even cold out, but….eh. Whatever. It’s getting late anyhow. Comic just watches him, the soft sunset marbling his face orange and pink along with the cyan-yellow iridescence of his magic. So many colors, never pure white. Nothing pure in this place, but it looks better that way, anyhow. Red touches his collarbone absently. Oh, right. Still gotta get his pretties back. Comic said he could, and so far his word’s been good as Sunshine’s. The little shit.

“i’ll help,” Red says shortly. Comic does that slow, solemn nod again. Then he yells something at his brother in a language Red’s never heard before, and Sunshine yells something back twice as loud that makes Comic laugh some more. He does that a lot for such a dour, broody asshole. Now that Red’s full, fresh, and funky fly, he can read Comic’s expression like a book. Whatever Comic had _expected_ …was something remarkably different than what Red’s actually like.

Well, fuck him and his expectations.

Speaking of which.

“guess there’s really only one more order of business for today,” Red rumbles.

Comic turns that hooded, bullshit gaze back on him. “and what’s that?”

“you gonna let me suck your dick or what?”

Red’s mouth’s still out from drinking, and he licks across his jagged teeth suggestively. Finds a leftover shred of pork between em too, so. Bonus.

Sans’s grin broadens into something close to real as he watches Red’s tongue give itself a workout.

“i don’t think so, sailor,” he rumbles. “but hey, cheer up. Paps says you c’n see your bro tomorrow.”

He ignores everything else Red says after that. He gets to his feet, then slowly shuffles away leaving Red to find his own way back to his sad little sick-hut.

In the end, Sunshine just carries him.


	8. A Ghost Is Born

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [ Wilco - Theologians](https://youtu.be/-JVrjBKCWgs)

“I TOLD YOU HE WAS HERE,” Sunshine says, but Red’s not listening. He’s too busy taking a shortcut direct to his brother’s pallet.

“DON’T TAKE THAT OFF,” Sunshine cautions quickly. “IT KEEPS HIM ASLEEP, AND TRUST ME. HE DOESN’T WANT TO BE AWAKE RIGHT NOW.”

Red’s hands were already shaking, but now he notices it. He leaves the blindfold in place, but checks to see the delicate puffs of sea-island cotton filling his skull behind it that keep him unconscious. The rest of his face looks fine, if creepily expressionless, but then Red notices a glint under his mandible.

Panting shallowly, Red uses a gentle thumb to part sharp teeth and check his brother’s mouth. It’s in there just sort of half-emerged. He scrabbles the blanket back, sees the same at his hip joints, genitalia, and a few spots along his spine. Their bones are like a hard shell; the soft bits that help them have bodily functions hide between them, usually only coming out when they’re being used. Still normal if it happens a little bit when they’re asleep, but all of it at once like this _isn’t_. Yeah, the magic’s the right color, seems moist and properly dense, but…it reminds Red too much of a smashed snail, stuff that needs to stay inside oozing through the cracks.

It’s not really helping him ignore the fact that half his brother’s ribcage is missing _,_ just fucking _gone_ along with part of his thoracic _spine_ and most of his goddamn shoulderblade. Has to grit his teeth just to look directly at it.

Deeply shaken, Red hides his brother’s body again like the coward he is.

Then he tears the blanket back down, because suddenly it’s hard to catch his breath. He leans down to scent him at a few spots, checks him again, but there’s no way to _know_. No way to… Panting, Red grabs the blanket and pulls it over his brother’s unconscious body. Starts tucking it in, grabs another blanket right by and covers him more, covers his face cause he’s gotta, gotta _hide_ him…

Red jumps; he didn’t see Sunshine move but those huge hands are squeezing his shoulders bracingly.

“HE WAS NEVER ALONE, AND NEITHER WERE YOU,” he says, harsh voice almost managing gentleness. He doesn’t try to interfere with Red’s line of vision fixed on his brother, but he slowly uncovers Edge’s face again. “I MADE SURE HE WAS SAFE WHILE YOU WERE SICK.” He leaves the rest of the blankets there, and it feels almost like forgiveness. He’s got Red in an odd, non-intrusive half-hug, just kind of saying things while Red gets his shit together.

Sunshine gives the uninjured side of Edge’s chest a gentle, deliberate double-pat.

 _Safe_.

Red’s breath shudders out all at once. Then he shrugs Sunshine away impatiently, still all shaky-weird in the head. He glances up at his face, darts his eyes away like it burned him.

“the fuck didja _do_ to him?” he manages faintly.

“DO YOU WANT THE LONG ANSWER? THE SHORT ANSWER? THE TECHNICALLY COMPLEX AND RARELY APPRECIATED ANSWER? OR THE CONTINGENT ON YOUR CONTEXT-PROVIDING RESPONSE TO HIS CONDITION ANSWER?”

“last one,” Red manages after a hot second.

“APPARENTLY HE DETERIORATED AFTER YOU LOST CONSCIOUSNESS, WHICH IS PROBABLY THE PART YOU’RE CONCERNED ABOUT. HE WAS WORSE WHEN WE FOUND YOU.”

“how’s that even possible?” Red whispers. “how’s he not _dead_?”

“HE’S NOT DEAD BECAUSE _YOU_ WEREN’T YET. APPARENTLY INVENTING A WAY TO EAT EACH OTHER ALIVE UNTIL YOU DIE SLOWS THINGS DOWN CONSIDERABLY!!”

Red stares at Sunshine, appalled.

“DON’T ASK ME WHAT YOU DID!!” he cries, even though Red didn’t. Yet. “I DON’T KNOW, AND IT SHOULDN’T BE POSSIBLE. BUT IT’S GROSS!” Sunshine...beams. Wowsers. “AND IT MADE YOU VERY SICK!”

“it worked?”

“NNYEH….” Sunshine replies, glancing down at Edge, “AS MUCH AS SOMETHING LIKE THAT CAN BE SAID TO ‘WORK’.”

“k, but why’m i better n he’s _not_ , sunshine?”

He scratches his chin dramatically for longer than Red expected.

“THE BEST WAY I CAN EXPLAIN IT IS...BECAUSE YOUR PARTS WERE BROKEN BUT THERE, BUT HIS PARTS ARE MISSING. OR PARTIALLY GONE AND NOT SEALED OFF PROPERLY.”

Acid washes through Red’s soul.

“i tried, but he, he tried to _show_ me but, but it won’t-”

“YOU _CAN’T_ DO THAT, THOUGH??” Sunshine interrupts, blinking in apparently sincere surprise. “I MEAN. NOT WITH…. _MY_ BROTHER CAN’T DO IT, EITHER??”

“but...”

Red looks down at the scarred terminating knob of his femur. So does Sunshine, suppressing a grimace the state of it. Red covers it with his hand defensively.

“it was nice when he first did it,” Red mumbles. “i, uh. i don’t, uh….take care of m’self,” he finishes in a hoarse whisper.

“I HAD POSSIBLY NOTICED THAT,” Sunshine says flatly.

“but….what did _you_ do? how do you make it…?” He gestures at his leg, then his brother’s still-hidden and half missing body parts.

“IT COMES OUT OF MY HP,” Sunshine says slow, like it’s obvious. “YOU AND SANS…. _MY_ -SANS AND YOU CAN’T DO IT BECAUSE YOU’RE TOO SMALL. YOU’D PROBABLY DIE IF YOU TRIED, AND AGAIN! I AM NOT ENTIRELY...SURE...WHY YOU DIDN’T? FROM...THIS.”

Something hot twists in Red’s soul-guts. Edge never told him any of that. No matter how much Red asked for more lessons, a better explanation, another try. He’s got the sinking feeling it’s because Edge was worried Red would _do_ it if Edge was hurt bad enough, even knowing the risk. And….well, the snotty little shit was right. Red would have, because he _did_. Except.

“that’s not what i did?” Red whispers hoarsely.

“NO.”

“okay,” Red whispers hopelessly. Then a big, bony hands plops him on the shoulder. Red looks up at Sunshine, who looks like _he’s_ about to fucking cry or something.

“you kiddin me right now?” Red shrugs the hand off (halfheartedly). “don’ fuckin’ touch me,” he mumbles, skull flushed. Then he looks back at his crushed brother, his maimed-on-Red’s-watch-taking-a-deathblow-for-him _baby bro_ , and his soul twists again. Too hard to ignore.

Sunshine holds him like he did when he was sick. He feels about the same right now. Nothing he can do about it. It just happens, just like everything else in his useless, pathetic life. After a while, Sunshine puts him down again. He goes back to Edge, just kind of pets the top of his skull for a few minutes. Not too much to say about it. Well.

“can you help me get my stuff in here?” Red rasps.

“I….” Sunshine jumps when Red’s eye lights hit him hard. His smile’s crooked. “I DON’T KNOW IF THAT’S THE BEST IDEA?”

“why _not_?” Red says, suddenly sharp.

“YOUR CAT CAN’T BE IN HERE,” he replies, points in his sockets jittering as he glances at the wall over and over.

“cause i care more about a cat fartin’ in my face all night than my _brother_ ,” Red scoffs, and Sunshine hunches in on himself. “how about you tell me what’s going _on_ , pudding-pie.”

Sunshine fidgets. He really doesn’t want to say whatever he’s about to.

“tell me,” Red says, dangerously quiet.

“I KEPT YOU APART FOR MORE THAN JUST THE, UH, THE EPISODES?” Sunshine caws breathily. Red twirls his hand at him, getting impatient. “YOU WERE TOGETHER AT FIRST, BUT THEN, THEN IT STARTED TO GO BACK.” The twirl becomes a windmill.

“ _what_ did, sunshine?”

“THE THING YOU DID!” he cries weakly, wringing his hands. “WITH YOUR SOULS!”

“with my _what_ now?” Red whispers, suddenly cold.

“YOU TANGLED THEM UP!” Red supposes that gesture is meat to be illustrative, but he’s got no fucking clue. “I’D WORK ON UNDOING IT FOR _SO LONG_ , BUT WHEN I CAME BACK? IT WOULD BE WORSE AGAIN!?!”

Red’s rubbing his collarbone and trying to swallow without a mouth, staring down at Edge.

“what did i do to him?” he says, voice sounding tight and strange in his own skull.

“I DON’T KNOW!!” he cries yet again. “I...DON’T...” He’s sweating now.

“what. did. i. _do_?” Red grates.

Sunshine’s shoulders drop for a moment, then square. This time when those black eyes meet his, Red’s the one who tries to look away. He suddenly can’t, though.

“I THINK YOU TRIED TO MAKE HIM ABSORB IT,” Papyrus says. Nicknames are fine, but that’s who he _is_. Time can’t change that, and Papyruses are less flexible than Sanses that way. “WHICH I THINK YOU _DID_ A LITTLE BIT DESPITE THE WHOLE 'IMPOSSIBLE' ISSUE, AND THAT MAY HAVE MADE HIM VERY SLIGHTLY EXTREMELY ANGRY. AND NOW HE WON’T STOP TRYING TO GIVE IT _BACK_.”

“what?” Red tries to swallow again, like he’s gonna hurl. Even though he’s got nothing to hurl with.

“THE PROBLEM IS THAT YOU'RE ALL OVER THE PLACE, AND WHAT HE’S DOING IS MAKING HIM….LEAK? BLEED?” He grunts irritably. “AND IF HE CAN FEEL YOU NEARBY, IT GOES INTO _YOU_. IT’S GROSS!!!”

Red’s bones crawl with the awareness of his brother’s proximity, and Sunshine’s. They’re monsters, so he can’t really help it. They feel tangibly _alive_ to him in a way the rest of everything here just...doesn’t.

“but he’s not even awake,” Red protests weakly instead of acknowledging the gross part. He was warned, and it didn’t help.

“THAT’S KIND OF THE PROBLEM,” Sunshine caws flatly. “HE’S STUCK AT THE PART WHERE HE WAS UNCONSCIOUS, YOU TRIED TO SAVE HIM IN A WAY HE DIDN’T AGREE WITH, AND NOW HE’S VERY...DETERMINED TO MAKE YOU STOP. DOING THAT. EVEN THOUGH YOU DID.”

Red flinches. There’s a reason he knows Sunshine’s telling the truth when he said Red was never alone while he was sick. He would have known. His body knows, and so does his soul, even when his mind isn’t around to direct the proceedings.

“you gotta wake ‘im up, sunshine,” Red babbles shakily. “gotta tell him i ain’t-”

“IF I WAKE HIM _NOW_ , UP HE’LL SCREAM A BUNCH AND THEN DIE,” Sunshine interrupts harshly. “A LESS THAN OPTIMAL OUTCOME! IN MY HUMBLE OPINION!!!”

Red knows that expression. It’s the same one his brother makes when he regrets how he said it, but won’t apologize for the truth.

Red sighs and sags.

There’s a lot of sagging going on lately.

He feels saggy.

“is he really gonna get better?” He hates the hope in his own voice, which also has more gravel in it than before all this. He kinda wonders if it’s permanent after he screamed it gone during his coma or whatever.

“HE’S ALREADY WORKING VERY HARD ON DOING THAT. YOU JUST HAVE TO TRUST HIM. AND GIVE HIM SOME SPACE!!”

Sunshine’s grin returns full force, and Red winces under its merciless light. He hates that he believes him. Makes him feel like he’s actually got something to lose, and he’s fairly sure he can’t take any more of that. What Red really wants to do is sit on Edge like a fucking egg, snapping and snarling at anyone who even tries to look at him. He wants to snap off his own bones and shove them in his missing pieces, because it’s all Red’s fault they’re gone.

“I’M SURE THERE ARE OTHER... _THINGS_? YOU CAN DO TO OCCUPY YOUR TIME WHILE HE RECOVERS???”

Red blinks at the abruptness of that, absently rubbing his chest. Oh. Right. He said he would help Comic with the machine.

“well, uh, your brother said-”

“I’M _SURE_ HE _DID_!!!” Papyrus interrupts. Oh, right. The whole mystery beef issue. “HAVE YOU EVER WEEDED A GARDEN??”

Red has not.

His teeth part so he can breathe through them, like he’s trying to avoid a bad smell. He sweats and doesn’t wipe it so Sunshine can see how frail he still is, pushes the inner corners of his sockets up all sad-like. Just sitting here’s plenty busy. Look how tiny he is. Only got one leg. Brother’s sick. He’s...

Sunshine scowls at him.

“was gonna show th’ meatsplat how ta use a knife,” Red mutters quickly. “you fix my leg yet?”

Sunshine gives him another very familiar Look.

“BASIC INSTRUCTION IN POINTYTHING SAFETY?? A COMMITMENT TO BOTH FOSTER AND LESSEN THE DANGERS OF CHILDREN’S UBIQUITOUS LOVE OF DEADLY SPIKES!? HOW UNCHARACTERISTICALLY _MOTIVATED_ OF YOU!!”

“i mean.” Red clears magic in his skull. “you don’ really know me all that well yet, sunshine. i got...” Motivation to beat the shit out of his men when he’s cranky? Homicidal tendencies? Boundless energy for verbally abusing his brother and stealing other people’s shit?

“...stuff,” Red finishes limply.

Sunshine’s teeth part, but nothing comes out as color wobbles across his cheekbones. Oh. Red embarrassed him. Well, Sunshine _is_ being pretty familiar. Sort of acting like Red’s his new crusty, violent brother. Red wasn’t actually trying to make him feel bad for _that_ (since he likes it), so he casts about for something less fraught to bring up. Like they’re just hanging out. Maybe it’ll help Edge to hear someone having a normal conversation for once.

“your people call you _she_ cause you weed a garden?” Red tries. “whass the deal with that?”

“OH! THAT’S JUST BECAUSE SPANISH DOESN’T HAVE A WORD FOR IT,” Sunshine corrects.

“¿una palabra par’ desyerbar un jardín?” Red says wryly. “tengo un poco certeza que lo hacen, sunshine.”

“NO, FOR...ME. MY JOB? WHATEVER THEY CALL IT. IT MEANS I CAN DO WHATEVER I WANT, WHICH IS TRUE.” Sunshine does a quiet little _nyeh heh_. “HOW _OLD_ DO YOU TELL THEM YOU ARE?”

Red’s grin happens on its own, he doesn’t even have to force it there. This fuckin’ guy. “went with ‘probably forty or something.’ helps when most of em don’t know for sure themselves, right?” Sunshine wobbles his skull becomingly. “you?” Red asks.

“I’VE BEEN TWENTY NINE FOR FOUR YEARS!” Sunshine proclaims, putting fists on his hips even though he’s sitting down. “BUT I DON’T LOOK A _DAY_ OVER TWENTY!! NYEH HEH HEH!!” He sighs, looking awfully satisfied. “I DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS,” he crows proudly. He also lets his sockets droop to emphasize their darkness, turning his head a little to show off the strong line of his jaw.

“feels weird to you too, huh?”

Sunshine nods fervently, then gets into a long explanation of his disappointment in the number of cars he’d been expecting ‘on the surface’. Discovering ‘years’ as more than a figure of speech had just been one more weird thing on the pile for Red and Edge, but humans apparently can’t function very well without knowing where you fit in their boxes. Sunshine’s complaining about how none of the humans here want to talk about cars, and eventually pauses for breath.

“hard to tell what’s gonna be important to humans and what ain’t. they take some shit really seriously, huh?”

“WELL! MAYBE IT’S BECAUSE THEY’RE SO...” Sunshine makes more of those gestures. Red shakes his skull, still not getting it. “THEY’RE SO _SICK_ ALL THE TIME! EVERYTHING HURTS!! I DO WHAT I CAN, BUT...” Sunshine’s sockets angle toward Edge, and they both sober a little. Red more because he’s recalling Edge sharing the same thoughts with him, one night early on huddled in their freshly stolen ship. Red had gone looking for some kinda human doctor not long after that, and...

Red clears thick magic from his rusty talkbox. “you ever figure out how to tell ‘men’ from ‘women’ without asking?”

Sunshine brightens.

“OH, THAT’S EASY!! HUMANS LOOK AT THEIR BABIES’ GENITALIA AND DECIDE WHAT THEIR LIVES WILL BE LIKE IN ADVANCE BASED ON HOW IT’S SHAPED!” Papyrus caws. “WHICH IS THE WORST WAY TO SOLVE A HOROSCOPE _I’VE_ EVER SEEN, BUT I’VE ONLY BEEN HERE FOR A FEW YEARS!” He grin goes calculatedly vacant. “MAYBE YOU JUST HAVE TO SPEND ENOUGH TIME STARING AT CHILDRENS’ GENITALS, AND IT STARTS TO MAKE SENSE!!”

“don’t make any sense to me, either,” Red admits with a shrug. “i made all my humans sign a paper says they’re a man while they’re on the uh, when i had my….”

Red spends an indeterminate about of time _not_ thinking about all the things he used to have. It takes a surprising amount of energy to do nothing.

“don’t touch me,” Red mumbles, shrugging off Sunshine’s massive hand again.

“THIS IS ACTUALLY THE MENS’ VILLAGE?” Sunshine informs him. “BUT YOU CAN JUST KEEP BEING WHATEVER YOU ARE. I CAN BE HERE BECAUSE I’M NEITHER.”

“huh?”

“I’M NEITHER? OH. UM. I’M A SKELETON? SO THAT MEANS I’M NOT A BOY OR A GIRL. I’M PAPYRUS!! SO I’M ALLOWED. SOME OF THEM HAVE A WORD FOR IT AND OTHERS DON’T.”

“huh.” Red absorbs that, connects it to other things. “is chei a girl?”

“YES! CHILDREN DON’T COUNT. OR OLD PEOPLE?”

Red exhales, shares a commiserating look of exasperation with Sunshine. “see, this is why i made em sign a fuckin’ paper.”

“NYEH HEH HEH,” Sunshine giggles softly. Then he narrows his sockets like Red tricked him. “MAKING PEOPLE DO THINGS ISN’T NICE,” he says like he’s reading it off a business card. Then he clears magic in his skull. “I SHOULD MENTION THAT CHEI’S FATHER MAY TAKE ISSUE WITH POINTYTHING SAFETY BECAUSE HE DOESN’T WANT HER DOING THAT BECAUSE SHE’S A GIRL.”

Red knits his brow. He lifts a forefinger and leans in like that’ll help.

“I KNOW!!” Papyrus throws his hands up. “HE’S FROM SOME WEIRD PLACE WHERE GIRLS CAN ONLY USE KNIVES FOR CUTTING UP FOOD AND NOT FOR DRAMATIC, HIGH-IMPACT BATTLING IN ORDER TO MAKE NEW FRIENDS!! LUCKILY NO ONE ELSE AGREES WITH HIM AND JUST IGNORES IT. BUT HE TRIES TO TAKE HER KNIFE AWAY SOMETIMES.” Papyrus swivels his wrist, then poses his hand with spread fingers to indicate his Greatness. “I’M VERY GOOD AT HEALING STAB WOUNDS!”

Thinking of his meatsplat carving the spaghetti sauce right out of her bitchy dad reminds him of Edge again, and Red’s soul quietly decides something without his input. It feels weird, and he makes a weird noise. Red coughs, discreetly wraps his fist in lace and tries knocking on his sternum to show it who’s boss. Doesn’t do anything since it’s not actually in there.

Sunshine’s sockets narrow decisively.

“YOU CAN COME BACK,” he says instead of just telling Red to leave. Then he produces Red’s repaired peg from nothing. Red’s starting to have a suspicion. He keeps the suspicion in his back pocket for now, straps his leg on and heaves himself upright with a little discreet help from Sunshine.

“you gonna do your thing, boss?” he asks quietly. It makes the twinge worse, but he earned it.

“YES!” Sunshine beams.

“okay,” Red agrees quietly. He heads for the door, which this room has.

“AND _DON’T_ DIE!

Red stops with a light huff of amusement, turns back.

“don’ tell me what ta do, you ain’t my….”

Red sobers rather abruptly.

“IF YOU DIE, SO WILL YOUR BROTHER. AND I’D LIKE TO FINISH MAKING SURE HE’S GOING TO LIVE BEFORE HE DIES! IT’S KIND OF A LOT OF WORK!!” Sunshine gives him an exasperated look, but something just barely under the surface chills Red deep enough to burn a little.

“that work both ways, sunshine?”

“DOES IT NEED TO?”

Black sockets yawn around black eyes, and suddenly Red’s not so sure they’re in there.

Okay. Best friendship ended with Sunshine; Red trots stiffly for his New best friend, the fucking door out of this room.

Now that he knows the deal, it’s a little embarrassing that his brother’s been a few houses down from him this whole time, in a small room accessible from a placket door on the backside of the island brothers’ dwelling. He’s not really sure why he didn’t see it on the drunken tour of the little town or whatever Sunshine took him on last night, cradled carefully on his hip and bellowing explanations too continuously for Red to ask him any questions.

He’d taken Red back to his sick-hut after and put him to bed, then curled right around him too tight to escape, sort of like a drunken bone octopus. Made Red kind of nostalgic for whatever haze he’d been in previously that had made him immune to that buzzsaw of a snore. Doubly so when the cat returned with half an iguana for Red’s pillow, and then commenced the farting. Eventually the skelly melly got stronger than the smelly or something, because he’d dropped off pretty soon after that despite.

All that’s a nice distraction from actually absorbing everything he just got told.

When he walks around the corner, Comic’s there to provide another. Guess it’s his _turn_ again now. Red’s really hitting em out of the park today. He reaches down and checks his leg. Still attached. Yep. Nothing but winning.

“so, uh. you like your shit sandwiches a bite at a time, or all at once to get it over with?” Comic asks. Red reconsiders the shortcut he was about to take back to the beach, which is the only place he really know well enough here to get to without risking a problem.

“that last one,” Red grits out. “you got any mustard ta wash it down?”

“nope. nor ketchup. so.” Comic scratches his chin quickly with the back of his thumb. “got some bodies out that way a bit, might be your people. dunno if you wanna-”

“i’ll check em,” Red interrupts hoarsely. “let’s go.”

“got your juice back, eh?” Comic leads him back down to the beach, but takes a side path before they get to the sand. Red groans recalling the reflexive shortcut he’d taken to Edge’s bedside from Sunshine’s hip. He’s lucky he didn’t end up taking him along to accidentally crush what’s left of his brother in his pallet. Shit.

“maybe,” Red answers shortly. Shortcut’s still there if he needs it, and he's not even close to spent. He also made some constructs when Sunshine went to go get him some breakfast without breaking a sweat. He’s feeling remarkably solid in a few key ways. Not so much in others.

“you get skeeved by dead stuff?” Comic asks as they approach a thicket.

“not especially.” Red felt kinda weird the first few times humans left a buncha meat on the floor, sure. But that was years ago, and Red couldn’t really blame anyone but himself for putting it there.

“these ones are pretty clean by now,” Comic adds, then moves some plants aside for Red gallantly as a sweetie dolled up for business. Red decides plants are his enemy. Way too many of those fuckers around here for his comfort, hiding all sorts of bodies in their midst.

Comic ain’t wrong. Most of the bones are still there, and whether the shreds holding them together are clothes or sundried people-jerky doesn’t much matter at this stage. Red knows all about his men’s dental problems, so he just checks the teeth. No whammies, but… Huh. Whaddaya know. He recognizes that chipped incisor on the one on the end, and it _ain’t_ one of his.

Red sticks the heel of his boot into the eye socket of the dead thing on the ground. Then he pushes with all his weight, and the skull gives way with a surprisingly wet crunch.

Heh. Must have been some meat left in there after all.

“think you just murdered a crab the hard way,” Comic comments dryly. “we coulda been eating like pirate kings.”

“anyone eats a crab that ate _this_ motherfucker is gonna end up with a bad case of _bloody cape_ ,” Red rasps, hearkening back to the poop joke Comic made however long ago about the name humans gave Red. Comic snorts, then looks appalled at himself. That’s more satisfying than it should be.

Or maybe it’s just that good to be spitting on Doucet’s non-grave. Red steps on a femur and bends over to pull off the lower leg. He methodically whacks the ribcage flat with it, then cocks his arm back and throws it hard through the beachward plant screen, sighing dreamily.

“you havin’ fun there, hoss?”

Comic’s eyes are a little on the small side, but his expression says he put it together. Not that Red gives a shit.

“kinda wish i could piss right now,” Red admits, calmly kicking the corpse apart. “is chei busy?”

“shut up,” Comic wheezes, covering his face with his hand as his shoulders shake helplessly.

“hey, i’m not the one laughing at a funeral,” Red observes solemnly, then lets his sockets list shut as he balances his foot over Doucet’s deadass pubis. Red shudders and grunts as his poxy pelvis collapses under Red’s boot. “yeah, that’s the stuff,” Red whispers as he grinds his heel, grin smearing across his face warm as blood.

“maybe we should move on before you start jerking off,” Comic drawls. Red opens his eyes, crabby to be interrupted and a little sorry he didn’t think of that first. Heh. Crabby. He cleans the guts off his shoe by scuffing it in a patch of dry sand.

“thought that was all of em,” Red says, because he did.

“nope,” Comic replies simply, but his expression wipes the grin back off Red’s face pretty quick. “put these ones over some anthills cause they were so ripe we could smell em in town when the wind changed. the rest are past the tide line over here.” He juts his broad chin toward the far side of the thicket.

Red doesn’t bother steeling himself. Nothing ever makes this part any better.

Comic clears his way again, and Red takes in eighteen sets of bones that used to be people. He can already tell the littlest one in the middle with the bent spine is Guts the cook, and Red gets a little saggier. He wasn’t great, but he didn’t suck as bad as the one he replaced. He didn’t have people offship either, just his cartographer matey who’s….yeah, he’s the first one in the row. Blind Jack with his thick lenses that are somewhere under the water entertaining the fish now. Always bitching about his inks and papers, Red forking out wads of cash to keep him happy in his creaky little hole belowdecks. Now, _he_ had a sister out there in a fishing town Red found reasons to be near every few months. Too bad she’ll probably never know what happened to him.

None are little enough to be the kid Doucet had with him. Some part of Red’s glad about that and hopes they made it. He’s got a pretty strong hunch _they_ didn’t choose to get floating any more than Red’s cat. Should have boxstepped that poxy asshole all the way to dust, but he can always head back for a jig. Doucet ain’t going anywhere anymore, but no amount of dancing can fix what’s broken.

Red’s breathing goes shallow as he walks the line slower and slower. Comic doesn’t say anything, doesn’t do anything but stay close and to his left rear. Where he can still see him and _not_ his blind spot, which is a smart move on his part. Red’s pouring sweat, but he doesn’t wipe it.

His breath hitches and doesn’t stop when the sun glints off Piggy’s gold molar, but there ain’t nothing he can do for her now. He’ll dig it out for her kids when he’s done here like he promised, when he’s….when he can finish. Here. _He_ on the ship; s _he_ cause Piggy’s on the ground now. Gonna be here forever.

Red strangles it down til he can still see enough. As much as he needs to.

Just one more, and there’s still no Sugar Jaques. No Rags, no...

_No._

Red just sort of sits down without meaning to, because it’s Tibam. Of _course_ it’s fucking _Tibam_. He flops over, crawls up and clonks his forehead against that sad, _stupid_ fucking crab-picked skull.

“sorry,” he whispers low, so only the dead can hear. Never bothered to say _sorry_ to his sorry ass once in life, but it’s the only thing that matters now he’s dead. And if Teebz is right about shit, it still counts. Red’s _seen_ souls head out, he knows what’s up. Maybe? They go somewhere. Red makes a dry, hoarse noise.

He doesn’t know jack shit about jack _or_ shit.

“sorry, t-dog. sorry i gotcha deaded on my call.” Red takes a shuddering breath, reaches up and unerringly touches the missing piece of skull where something stove it in on the way down. He uses the same hand what got smashed keeping Edge’s skull from the same fate, hears a weird, thin seabird cry. Red only has two hands, not enough for his whole crew. Barely enough hands to keep Edge alive, and now his bro’s only got one. He can’t wait to make him cringe with all hands on deck, oops, sorry bro! jokes, if… if the stupid lil shit ever...ever wakes up.

Red shudders with silent, hysterical laughter.

Red rears up, magic flaring hard when a hand touches his arm.

He stares at Comic, but Comic’s staring down at Tibam’s corpse like he’s sad about something.

Everything inside Red bursts into flame all at once. Where the hell does he get off? _This is all his fault_. He’s the one that brought Red and his brother here to get fucking maimed, to scrabble out some kind of way to survive, to find people, to let them wriggle their horrible little ways under Red’s guard…only to wind up in a row on the beach so Red can count their fucking teeth.

The flames extinguish as quick as they ignited, leaving Red with nothing but ashes inside. Comic’s still not looking at Red, because he knows. He fucking _knows_. Well. Good for him. _Red_ can’t do this anymore. Can’t be the one counting teeth, can’t be the one whose fault it is, can’t be the one who’ll do it all again.

Red kneels and holds his friend’s corpse, decides he’s not the captain of anything anymore.

He feels something inside him try desperately to let go, and suddenly realizes why Sunshine said that shit to him before he left. Because he feels a tug that lets him _know_ Red can’t sink alone. That he made sure he’ll be his brother’s concrete shoes if he can’t fucking hack it. One more mistake piling up, and Red’s soul can’t bear it. He can’t take it, and he can’t let it go. He’s about to break under it anyhow when he feels another tug in a different direction.

Comic pries Red away from lifeless bones and takes him into living ones. A hot point of life in a world that feels over, a light in a living hell he’d been sure he was doomed to wander forever with just him and his brother, nothing but death all around.

Comic _holds_ him. And for some fucking reason, Red lets him.

He tells itself it’s because he’s hoping to get his dick wet at some point, but the truth’s a lot uglier than that.

Red knows deep down, Comic feels the same soul-scalding burn of failure he’s feeling right now. Bloody Cape’s luck is cursed, most people who’ve seen his business end say. The Immortal Pirate King, sold his soul to the devil. Red’s soul ain’t anything anyone could want, and he doesn’t know any devils. What he _does_ know is something a lot worse than that.

Red’s mistakes are something other people end up paying for.

And so are Comic’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay! i'm pretty sure i'm done killing people now <3  
> hopefully a bit less grim from here but still filled w skeleton drama


	9. What Propels Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Mastodon – Blood and Thunder](https://youtu.be/fnwZca8z9II)

Bloody Cape, the Immortal Pirate King of the Mosquito Coast, dies on an unnamed beach along with half his crew.

Red, however, lifts his face off Comic’s shoulder and sits back on his heel, wiping his leaky faceholes with tatty lace sleeves. He’s still got shit to do. Bodies to bury, he supposes. Except the ones who left special instructions.

“i’ll bury em,” Comic says hoarsely, his own skull inexplicably tear-streaked. “you don’t have to-”

“i’ll take care of mine,” Red interrupts quickly. “i, uh.” He clears magic in his skull, but his voice is just harsher than Comic’s now all the time. “…promised.” Red flushes, but Comic just nods solemnly.

“well, i marked around here,” he says, “so they’re good for now.” Red has no idea what he’s talking about. Comic leans in with a faint frown, then back in understanding. “you lived on a boat. right. okay, so. anything that’s dead, animals come around to eat it, right? can’t really, uh. explain it to them.”

Red nods. He’s tried. Rats do what they do, can’t tell em jack shit. Although Red’s pretty sure his cat _understands_ him, it just doesn’t care.

“yeah,” Comic’s saying, “animals mess with a lotta shit. say you don’t want that to happen?” Comic makes a weird face, and Red sees his mouth drop. He licks his fingers, then touches Tibam’s former residence reverently. “takes less juice than a construct, but that’ll work, too. just gotta tell em no. i think they, uh. smell it or something.”

Red reaches out, and Comic startles. Red clears his throat, finishes the movement while maintaining deliberate eye contact, and takes Comic’s fingers into his. Comic flushes as Red lifts his hand to give it a sniff. Yeah, Red wouldn’t eat anything that smelled like that, either. Not bad, just…no, like he said. He gives Comic his hand back with a huff.

“i’m not gonna jus’ explode outta nowhere.” Comic doesn’t react at all, and Red sighs. “i got no way to know whatever...sans…es?….you dealt with before was like. i ain’t a good person,” Red says again, and Comic looks sour, “but i ain’t gonna go round killin’ your folks for no reason.”

Comic keeps his eyes fixed on Tibam for another long minute, then looks back up at Red.

“yeah, well. everyone’s got their reasons, huh?”

“not saying i won’t take care a business,” Red snaps, annoyed. “i...”

Red trails off. He’d been about to say he takes care of his own. On a beach littered with incontrovertible evidence of his failure to do so.

Red needs a minute after that. He cried for the ones on the beach already. Maybe this round’s pouring for ol Bloody Cape. Comic waits patiently, and eventually Red wipes his face again and sighs.

“you need to blow off some steam, you come see me or paps,” Comic says like it’s the middle of a conversation. And a lot more gently than he was spouting off a minute ago. “not humans. not little kids, even ones with knives.”

Comic’s eyes harden at that, but Red’s got a feeling it’s not about him for a change. Red’s got the vibe that wherever Comic’s from wasn’t dealing with the same kind of LV issues Red saw back home, but maybe it ain’t unheard of. Comic tilts his skull, just shy of flirtatious.

“might be nice sparring with someone i got a chance against for once.” He winks. Red cocks a browbone. Seems Sunshine’s a lot like Edge in some ways, then. Good at fighting. Red, not so much. What he _is_ good at is killing the shit out of something. Based on the rep of the cove, smart money says Comic’s the same.

“same here,” he grunts, offering Comic a real smile. “guess shit gets heavy even in margaritaville, huh?”

“…speaking of that.” Comic’s white eyes shift into harder focus. “you feeling up to some heavy lifting about now?”

Red stares at him. Comic took over custody of Red from Sunshine because he wants to bring up the _Boneripper_ , figured he’d get Red wound up first, get him riled. This manipulative little _shit_.

“you thought i needed a little _motivation,_ huh?” he hisses dangerously. “figured you’d shake me up like a can of fuckin soda, get me to spray where you point?”

“i think i waited til you could stand straight enough to haul it up to show you this….cause i figured you might have some shit to work out on something that can’t get too much more broken that it already is, after,” Comic says carefully.

Red deflates. He’s not wrong, and Red’s suddenly not in the mood to start a fight about it. Not a real one, anyways. He could use a meaty little bicker, though.

Stars, he misses his brother.

“fine,” Red grunts. “where’s she at?”

“the boat?”

Red sighs.

“… _yeah_ , my _boat_.”

Comic juts his chin to the northwest. “not too far out, actually. figured we’d haul it up on the cliff, peel the wreck off it like-”

“no,” Red says quickly. “we get it out the same way i got it in.”

Comic gives him a slow, level look.

“...red. that thing’s been soaking for like…a month. ‘s gonna be ripe fit to water your eyes by tomorrow night if you try and keep it beached.”

“i’ll clean it,” Red bluffs.

“gonna go through and dig out every minnow between the boards? keep the drainage from getting in the groundwater? how’s that work?”

“i think it works the same way you kept 22 human corpses from doing the same,” Red says quietly. “if humans here like jewelry as much as they do other places...and if you ain’t a liar,” he adds pointedly, “i c’n pay em to help.” Red hates to part with any of it. But if they bring up the ship, he can pawn his spares. “…tomorrow, i guess. and i can take care of mine then, too.” He means the bodies what used to be his crew. The only care he can take anymore. He doesn’t much care what Comic does with the rest of them.

There’s grudging respect in Comic’s eyes now, which is Red’s favorite kind.

“we’ll figure it out,” he says noncommittally.

Red decides he won anyways.

Comic helps him up and keeps hold of his hand. Getting dragged through someone else’s shortcut isn’t as disorienting when he’s expecting it. The cliff they end up on isn’t very far from where they just were, but Red feels a little pang when he sees how the bottom edge of the sun’s touching the horizon. That took a lot longer than Red thought, and he darts a few glances at Comic.

He’s focused on the massive shadow under the water, though. Huh. It’s not even that far down.

“was thinking we’d stick it there.” Comic gestures at a blank, sandy spot behind them past the brushline. Red assumes it’s big enough for it, although it’s not the end of the world if a few trees bite it.

“ready?” Comic doesn’t even look at him.

“yep.”

Red sees Comic slide right into the same stance, wide and low as if they were actually lifting something with their bodies. He can see Comic’s magic flare up in his joints, in his socket, puffing out his clothes a little more than usual. Red flexes his own, only a little weaker than Comic’s. He’s aware of it the same way he’s aware of Comic’s body, which makes sense since that’s pretty much what it is. They extend into the water together, take careful hold of the wreckage. Red feels out a boulder and lets it go, makes sure to get the ship, the whole ship, and nothing but the ship. He firms his grip, then sends it toward the middle until it meets up with Comic’s magic.

They lean into it together almost like a seam, or like interlocking fingers, maybe. Same as when he and his bro do it. There’s something visceral about it, which makes a kind of sense, since magic is what they have instead of viscera. It comes from their bodies, and they’re using it for something. In this case it’s two glass cannons lifting a boat that weights a few tons, kinda like someone helping get your busted couch out a narrow doorway without just tearing it apart.

Red can’t keep in a shuddering grunt as they haul up _Bone_ _R_ _ipper_ together, each of them lending support to either side of her broken back. Water pours from the holes in both sides. The sunset tints it red as blood, vivid and orangish like Red’s eyes. The dark silhouettes of whatever took up residence in his stead creates clots that block the light briefly. They get while the getting’s still good, which is a narrowing window as they lift the groaning hulk higher and higher. Red can relate; magic’s pouring out of him like blood from a wound, but he’s got what it takes to-

“watch the fuckin _rock_ , slapnuts!” he barks hard at Comic. They wheel it around the outcropping with a listing shudder, Red panting and pouring sweat like he’s trying to top Asgore or something. It ain’t easy, and it’s heavy as shit. Still being mostly full of water isn't helping.

“i gotta put it down,” Red rushes out, followed by a panting whimper. Comic doesn’t say anything, but Red feels his grip slide over Red’s, get it where it needs to be without dropping it. Red lets out a juddering yell, sways as the ships groaning acceptance of gravity drowns him out. Comic grabs Red in a quick hug, keeping the powerful gush of water past and around them as it drains out of the broken hulk from sweeping Red’s unsteady ass right over with it.

“shit,” he pants, then against as Comic jumps them closer. He rights himself as Comic lets him go. Then he turns and looks at Comic’s expression for the first time since they started.

“hey, wait-!!”

Comic’s already gone.

“howbout you _look_ before ya fuckin’ jump, jackass!!” Red yells at the side of the ship, looking all around for a way in. Comic’s got no way to-

“just get _in_ here,” he hears, the bellow vague and muffled. “it’s stable!”

Red pops into the machine room, flinches at the state of it. Machine’s fine, though. All the seals are doing what they’re supposed to.

“you already scout my fuckin’ boat, whitey? thought you were being respectful of other people’s shit, hmm?”

“not like i c’d ask you,” Comic huffs distractedly. “i didn’t fuck with anything else.” He turns his skull sharp and quick to skewer Red with an assessing glance as he pats at the machine. It’s dark as hell in here, the water almost waist deep on both of them. Red feels some critter flick against his thigh. He splashes at it, trying to get a bead on Comic’s damage. No good.

It’s too creepy being _in_ here, a roil of unpleasant emotions gripping Red’s soul in its fist. He can’t tell if it’s because everything’s fucked up, or if he’s got a legit bad feeling about something. Comic’s...not really helping with that.

“now _you’re_ here, i got a line on doppler cooling, right?” Comic pants hungrily. “you can go ahead and stabilize em. i c’n make a bath to neutralize the new ones, then get em going again once they’re in place.”

Red watches him scrambling around, doesn’t bother nodding since Comic ain’t waiting for answers. Just keeps mumbling about what he’s gonna do. He’s right, though. Red can provide the drag he needs so they can actually take the plates out safely, and Comic can start them back up. But that ain’t happening tonight. Seems like Comic didn’t figure that out yet. Or maybe he’s thinking a little too far ahead of things….maybe slightly to the left, too.

However he’s thinking, Red’s got a hunch it ain’t straight.

He watches for another minute or two, but finally stumps over and just grabs Comic’s hands when he tries to unlatch one of the seals. Looks like he’s trying to tease out a piece of bladderwrack. It actually takes some oomph, but Red wrestles him off the machine’s nuts and gets him to straighten up. It’s fine how it is. The seals keep everything out on their own unless you start fucking with them how Comic’s doing.

“how about you don’t make more problems we’ll have to fix later, hmm?” is all Red says, but Comic hunches as resentfully as Gollum over his fucking precious. “look. as much as i love wading dick-deep in fish piss, ‘m thinkin’ we should let it drain before we fuck around anymore.” Red’s feeling how long it’s been since breakfast, too. “we’ll come back when there’s free light instead of bleeding it ourselves. i’m pooped, an’ you gotta be...”

Comic’s got his face turned away, but the sliver of his expression Red can see twitches.

“you eat today?”

Comic doesn’t answer. Honestly seems like it’s taking everything he has not to start fucking with the seal again. Red’s starting to get an idea about what the beef between Comic and Sunshine might be. Red’s got a pretty high threshold for behavior he’d consider ‘weird’, but this is bordering on it. Weird-adjacent, maybe. Point is, Red really _is_ pooped, and if Comic’s gonna have some kind of freakout, Red’s not a hundred on whether he can deal with it.

“look, buddy,” Red starts, “i’m not about to kinkshame you for whatever this is, but _i’m_ bout ta _drink_ this fish piss if i don’t get some chow soon, and my peg’s barkin’. we can scrounge here, but i’m thinkin’ whatever your bro’s got on the fire’s better than slurpin’ whatever tentacles we can yank out of my scow’s sloppy guts like it’s high hentai, yeah?”

Comic does a fairly intense and extended shudder in Red’s arms. Like. Gets a little splashy. Red sighs, grits his teeth, and pops them back out of the ‘ _ripper_ on his steam. Mostly fumes, but it’s enough they don’t evaporate or whatever. Comic shudders again, then lets go and turns away. Red doesn’t care, because a weird, burning impulse drenches him top to toe.

“i’m gonna grab something real quick before we head out,” Red mumbles, girding his bony emotional loins once more.

Then he pops into the cabin he used to share with Edge. He does his best not to take in the state of it. The darkness helps with that, but it has its downsides. He narrowly avoids getting his thumb pinched off by a fucking crab in Edge’s bed, but he’s a little more careful about punching this one to death and hangs on to it. Red likes them, and never gets to put his traps out much. He can toss it on the fire and have it for dessert later.

He reaches under his brother’s sodden, submerged mattress and pulls out his dolls. He gently squeezes some excess water out of the bag, ties the drawstring to the inside of his cape one-handed and straightens up. He keeps his gaze on the black water, then heads back out with a choked groan of overexertion.

“dunno why, but i thought you were kidding,” Comic says casually. Red blinks, then looks down at the meaty crab in his fist.

“you c’n catch yer own,” he grumbles, drawing it closer to his body. Comic just laughs at him and holds out his hand. Well, glad he’s a little more normal again. Red takes it, and for some reason, blushes. Then he’s getting yanked through reality again, and they’re right outside the warm light of the little town. Men’s village or whatever.

Red’s about to haul ass over to the fire and whatever smells so good his mouth drops wet, but Comic’s soft _hey_ stops him. He swallows the hunger-magic and holds his crab tighter, just in case. They stare at the edge of the light in tandem, motionless. A strange abyss opens between here and there, sort of like where shortcuts happen. Not really in the world anymore. Between it. beside it.

“thanks,” Comic breathes.

“nope,” Red replies quickly.

“i, i get-”

"na-ah-ahh~…ya can’ help _that_ , said the _cat_ ,” Red interrupts in a fey whisper. He feels his existence digging into the flesh of this world like a wound, a thorn, his hiss unwinding in the space between everything else. "if ya weren’t _mad_ , ya wouldn’ta come here.”

He gives Comic’s hand a squeeze, then stumps awkwardly away into the circle of light ringing this strange human place like the crab-wielding goblin he is. Nothing helps. Might as well get on with it. He slap a few plants to get a little of his own back.

The humans stare as he approaches, like he’s gonna kill em with a dead crab. Well, that’s only gonna happen if they decide it is. Red would much rather eat it. About to eat its ass raw, for that matter. He stops looking at them, looks into the fire instead and sees what’s what. He finds a lump and sits on it, same kinda lump the rest of them are on.

Red grabs a stick, drags some coals near the edge out into a little bed with practiced ease. The mumble of conversation resumes meanwhile. These schlubs seem to accept his presence that much, since he’s just doing normal shit. Red pats the bed smooth, then tosses the crab onto it. Takes a clean stick and taps the big claw, listening carefully. Does it again just to make sure. The he settles back and hesitantly looks up.

Comic’s up at the fire too now, near the big ass pot that smells so good. Red looks around him, sees where he got his bowl from. Over there. Ugh. Red doesn’t feel like getting up again yet. He wasn’t kidding about his peg barking.

“where’s yer bro?” he asks Comic idly.

“with yours,” Comic replies smoothly, spooning up a hefty serving into a broad wooden bowl. He hands it to Red. Red hunches, secretly grateful. Comic takes another that looks like it might actually be a basket, but holds the stew just fine. He sits down next to him...which wasn’t why Red talked to him, but whatever. Weird looks from humans ain’t messing up Red’s appetite any. If it ever had, he’d have starved years ago.

The chow’s as good as last time. Totally different, except exactly the same. Chunks in broth.

“what’s this meat here?” he says after his initial guzzle, taking time to fish one out and smash it. It’s definitely meat. He sucks it down.

“turtle,” Comic says. “it’s like a bazillion years ago, so they’re not, uh. endangered or whatever. not like these folk eat enough of em to cause an issue.”

Red doesn’t know or care what he’s talking about. But he hides a smile in his bowl when Comic snorts at the farty hiss growing louder from Red’s personal pan crab-’za.

“stop screamin’, yer already dead,” he tells the crab, same as always. Edge might not be there to not-smile at his tired joke, but Red does it for him. He holds the bowl to slurp broth with one hand, but to the side so he can see to use his little stick to tap the claw again. Not yet.

The humans seem to have calmed their tits slightly, so Red takes a surreptitious glance around. Tries sizing them up, but it’s about as vague as usual. No way to tell what they’re thinking and feeling, other than yet another weird skeleton-monster-demon is…

“they know about my bro?” Red asks quickly.

“yeah,” Comic answers. “they knew he’s here, and he’s hurt. they know it ain’t none of their business.”

Red relaxes at that last part, just a little.

“good.” He sighs and slurps. Taps once more, listening tot he growing space between the meat and the shell. How much it shrinks means how done it is, changes the sound of the tap. Red drags his crab out of the fire and onto the sand to both finish cooking and cool, not that he needs the latter. Meat stays together better taking it out if it’s not too hot, though. Red sets his stick on the crab to keep it off the ground, then looks over at Comic.

“what?”

Comic just deadpans him, then pointedly uses the fat, ashy stick to push Red’s coals back into the fire. Puts the stick in after, too.

“thanks a peach, susie homemaker,” Red snickers.

Comic stares at him. He sits back and eats his food for a minute, then starts talking.

“once the coals go dark, no one knows it’s there. but it’s still live in the middle. say…one of these folks steps in it,” Comic rambles like it’s the setup for a bit. “lotta screaming, more work for my brother, everyone hates you. how’s that sound?”

“like you jus’ did my chores for free.” Red slurps the last of his broth between his teeth so it sounds like the dregs of a juice box. He looks around some more. No one's wearing any pretties at all. “you lie ‘bout them liking shinies, whitey? cause i ain’t seein’ em.”

“well. we don’t get many pirate kings ‘round these parts, ah _reckon_ ,” Comic drawls. He looks remarkably unimpressed. Red moves his shoulders around a bit for no particular reason, then squints across the fire.

Chei’s here too, cuddled up to and being fed by an unremarkable human in the same kinda clothes Comic’s got on. She’s staring at Red like she already has been for a while. When he meets her eyes and winks, she touches the knife at her waist solemnly. Red growls like a dog and gives her a dirty look.

She grins, delighted.

Red huffs and tries not to smile back, toying with his crab. Then he twists off the smaller claw down low and hidden...and wings it abruptly over the fire and right at Chei’s face. She catches it. The human, probably an old one now Red notices their puff of hair is white, gives Red an outraged look for no reason he can ascertain. Chei cracks the shell with her strong little teeth and sucks the sweet meat out if it. Then she winks back awkwardly, like she’s not used to winking or something.

Red can’t quite smother his soft giggle. Human children are weird as fucking balls.

“hey.”

Red looks up, annoyed to be interrupted as he cracks open the crab’s carapace.

“you have many kids around on that boat of yours before?”

Red already scooped some of the gunky shit inside into his mouth, takes a minute to suck off his fingers. Most folk don’t really like that part too much, but Red does. It’s skunky. Guess it’s their brains and shit, however much crabs have. Guts or whatever.

“nope,” he burps voluptuously, blowing crab scented breath at Comic. Comic’s bullshit grin is unmoved.

“well, uh. just a heads up. chei’s pretty sharp, but maybe don’t throw shit at little kid’s faces. not, uh. when they’re that young. they’re still kinda noodly, don’t have good reflexes yet.”

Red frowns at Comic, licking out the top half of the crab’s shell before setting it own and putting the twisted off legs in there. Just like a cute tea saucer. Nice and polite.

“how’re they supposed to _get_ good reflexes if they don’t _practice_?” Red asks, then licks out the other half and throws it in the fire. Comic’s laughing at him again, but Red can see it’s covering up that evaluating look behind his eyes. Red’s getting sick of that look, too. He gnashes his teeth through the crab’s legs at strategic points, hooks a pinky claw in the meat and pulls it out. Sucks it down, making little groans of satisfaction and resenting his evil twin’s high horsemanship. Before he can finish licking the sweet meat away and sink his teeth into his irritation, Comic’s talking again.

“humans won’t like you if they think you’re mean to kids,” he says in the secret gestures Red uses to talk to Edge in front of strangers. Red jerks with surprise, but it makes sense. He can’t help glancing around, but none of the humans are watching. “you didn’t exactly get a head start on that, cap’n stabby. and if they don’t _like_ you,” Comic continues, “they won’t _help_ you. you need their help.”

“these fuckos know Hands?” Red grates, annoyed.

“no,” Comic gestures casually, ignoring Red’s discomfiture. “but they have their own version. they know we’re talking, they just don’t care.”

“i gotta pay em, _and_ play by their weird-ass rules? i think you need to recalculate your cost of living, whitey,” Red mumbles, then pushes up his sleeves and sticks his hands in the fire to clean them. He looks up at a gasp; one of the humans is grimacing at him. At his hands, while he rubs the knuckles lightly to flake the ash off. Red widens his sockets in exasperation, looks back at Comic to give them a rest. He’s snickering.

“doesn’t get old, eh?”

“i dunno. being a novelty’s kinda losing it’s novelty,” Red mutters, and that evaluating look happens again. Comic’s grinning by the time Red’s wiping the heat out on his leggies. Then he has another go at making nicey-nice.

“outta curiosity. seems you and your bro had nicknames already?” Red swallows the nervous excess magic his mouth produces quickly, but Comic’s already shaking his skull. “you, uh. called out for him. gotta admit it took longer than it should have to figure out _edge_ meant your bro. PAPYRUS.”

The stark, thin capitals of his brother’s name ring with his font, and Red grunts. Feels like it’s been an age since he’s heard his brother’s full name with magic shaping the words into his image, and it’s creepy in his-but-not-his voice.

“not like humans can pronounce it right anyhow,” he says carefully.

It’s not an answer, but Comic lets it go. Which is just as well, considering Red doesn’t fancy explaining how hearing your own name shrieked hopelessly right before you deliver the deathblow tends to sour the sound of it. Edge and Red had been “boss” and “brother” (and myriad choice epithets) to each other for a long time before they got _here_ , saving their names for certain...contexts. It has its own meaning. How they talk, what they say, what they...call each other.

Red eventually realizes he’s been staring into the fire for longer than he meant to, holding where the bag is tied inside his cape.

“you ready?”

Red looks up, flushes when he sees Comic’s face. He takes a deep breath, sighs it out. Nods. Ignores Comic’s outstretched hand and struggles to his feet wincing and unassisted. They head around back, and when Comic opens the door the inside’s filled with soft, even light.

“you been holding out on me, sunshine,” Red mutters as he takes in the magic lantern on the ceiling above his brother’s pallet. “when do i get the fancy digs?”

“I’M SURE YOU’LL NEED THEM SOONER THAN ANYONE WILL BE HAPPY WITH!” Sunshine replies cryptically, and Comic starts snickering behind him. Well, Red doesn’t care too much right now. He approaches slowly, untying the still-damp bag from its hidey-hole. Edge just breathes quietly, unchanged from before except with fewer blankets on him, and in a slightly different position. He doesn’t react when Red plops down next to him. From what Sunshine said, that’s probably a good thing.

“brought yer dolls, papy,” Red mutters, resenting the presence of the other brothers as his face heats. Well, whatever. He blots them out of his mind. “le’ssee how they’re doing, hmm?”

Red knows all their names, but he doesn’t say them. Well, he knows em as long as they’re the same as the ones he had back home, but not all names are for saying. The three Red made are fine, made of rags knotted so finely and precisely the limbs hold shape, but are relatively pose-able. Seems like even after chilling in the drink, they’re gonna dry out tighter than ever. Might have to repaint the faces, but….well.

He’s got time now, he guesses.

Red goes through them one by one, lining them up on Edge’s pillow. Then his arm when he runs out of room, glancing quickly at Sunshine to make sure it’s not a problem. Red’s face heats. Comic’s in his lap facing him, arms tight around his neck and face buried in the ragged red scarf, hatless now, that he’s got wrapped around his neck.

Red’s flush dissipates. Of course they cuddle, just like him and Edge did onship. Sunshine’s gazing down at Edge’s face like he’s lost in thought, stroking his brother’s back like Red pets his cat sometimes. Sunshine glances up at Red, not smiling or saying anything, just looking, then turns his gaze back to Edge.

Watching over him like he said he would.

Red’s shoulders relax. He looks down at the scrimshaw ivory doll he’s holding, hard as the thumb he’s using to fondle its delicate texture. He doesn’t have an _audience_ for Creepy Private Brother Time, he has….a...well, okay, he doesn’t know what this is. Buddies? Brothers doing the same thing because they're the...same, but different?

He hears Comic take a tight, long breath in, hears it shudder out looser. Whatever they are, it's okay for Red to do what he needs to right now.

“there’s way too many fucking _plants_ around here, papy,” Red says quietly. His voice isn’t disturbing anyone. “so. there are a lotta places to hide, right? you should factor that in, once you’re up and killing em softly again. so, what you wanna do, is...”

Edge can’t correct Red’s strategy right now, but Red gently hopes he wants to. Whatever part can hear him. Being all the way unconscious is pretty hard for the likes of them, as Red had violently proved. He moves the dolls through a few of Edge’s favorites, does his best to describe it how he’d put it. He knows he can’t hold a candle to The Great and Terrible Papyrus’s brilliant master plans, and he tells him so. He makes mental notes of repairs that need done, lines the dolls up on his pillow and next to him on the bed. He lays the bag flat so they can all dry.

“h’okay,” Red sighs heavily. “i gotta turn it in bro, i’m about to headbutt m'self in the cooter. you keep an eye on these numbnuts for me, okay?” He rests his hand on Edge’s frontal bone. Well, what he can of it over the blindfold, and tells himself he looks a little better than earlier. Maybe it’s true. He leans in for a nuzzle, then groans and flops around.

“LET ME HELP,” Sunshine says, and Red does. Sort of. Lets him help him _up_ at least, and Comic takes his former spot leaning against the wall. He looks half asleep, but Red has a feeling that means he’s paying attention. Red does a weird, awkward nod and leaves.

Sighs with frustration as Sunshine gets up and follows him back to his sick-hut, starts his chatter as soon as they’re clear. Who knows, maybe it’s just a hut now. Red’s tired, sure, but it’s a more _normal_ tired. Which makes him uncomfortably aware that _o_ _ther_ things are starting to feel a more normal way too. Red stays standing up and waits for Sunshine’s chatter to wind down enough for edgewise words.

“you planning on bunking with me again?” Red’s feeling increasingly less patient as he speaks.

“A SLUMBER PARTY IS ALW-”

“part of your guard duties involve watching me jack off?”

Sunshine’s face immediately falls into the same expression he used for discussing the halves of iguanas the cat leaves on Red’s pillow.

“WOWIE!” Sunshine cries. “IF I’D KNOWN ABOUT _THAT_ SORT OF _DUTY-”_ the emphasis is definitely audible, “-I MIGHT HAVE THOUGHT TWICE ABOUT TAKING UNDYNE UP ON THE OFFER OF PRIVATE GUARD TRAINING!!!”

“it’s not an offer,” Red disambiguates quickly. He should really know by now he should be more careful how he phrases things when he’s dealing with Sunshine. “jus’ me saying i think you been babysitting so long, you forgot i _ain’t_ a fuckin’ baby.”

“I HAD NOTICED?? A FEW CRUCIAL _DIFFERENCES_ , ACTUALLY!?!?” Sunshine is visibly sweaty in the nearly nonexistent light. No fancy lanterns here. “DESPITE YOU HAVING LOST A FIGHT TWICE TO THE SAME CHILD? AFTER ALL, A BABY HAS INHERENT HELPLESSNESS?? IN THEIR ARSENAL!?!?!”

Ahh, right. The whole, uh. Holding a child at knifepoint thing. And that had _been_ under supervision.

“…wow. that really stings, sunshine,” Red says dramatically, pantomiming a chest grab to buy time. Red blurts out the next thing that occurs to him, and it’s a good point for a change. “you ever consider being all pent up might be makin’ me tetchy?” Sunshine’s expression doesn’t get worse, so Red runs with it. “see? m’ just looking out for the, uh, the community.”

He winks for sauce, but suddenly Sunshine’s all smug about something. Those black sockets somehow manage to gleam.

“YOUR RECENT COMMITMENT TO COMMUNITY SERVICE IS TRULY INSPIRING,” he smirks, sockets and the bone ridge above them in perfect, flat alignment. “ARE YOU WILLING TO PROMISE?”

Ohhh, this fucker’s playing hardball now. Son of a _bitch_.

“remember that whole conversation we had about how forcing people ta do shit’s bad?” Red tries. In vain, it turns out.

“I DIDN’T ASK YOU TO PROMISE ANYTHING,” Sunshine lilts. “I MERELY ASKED IF YOU WERE _WILLING_ TO.”

Red sags with defeat. Leave it to Sunshine to turn Red jerking it into some kind of dramatic change in the status quo. Because it’s up to Red to figure out what he’s willing to promise. He starts to sweat, and also ramble.

“so, uh. i guess you know i ain’t exactly innocent, of, uh, but i, i think i could say, i can-”

“WAIT, DON’T-!! DON’T, UMM!!?!?” Red stops talking, frowning up at Sunshine in confusion. Wow. He looks really uncomfortable. “DON’T PROMISE ANYTHING!!!!”

“gettin’ some real mixed signals here, sweetheart,” Red grumbles.

“I KNOW YOU FORGET THINGS, AND I SHOULDN’T TAKE ADVANTAGE,” Sunshine says after a minute. “I LEFT YOU ALONE LONG ENOUGH TO MAKE CONSTRUCTS YESTERDAY MORNING. YOU CAN BE ALONE IF YOU WANT!”

Red... _remembers_ that, now that he mentions it. He wipes at his sweat, flustered and flushing hard. He’s, uh. What were they talking about? Red just wants to jack off and go to sleep, he’s...uh...

“YOU AREN’T IN _JAIL_ ,” Sunshine says briskly. “IT AMUSES MY BROTHER TO LET YOU CONTINUE...BELIEVING SOMETIMES THAT YOU ARE.”

Sunshine sighs and shakes his head. He looks...apologetic?

“NEXT TIME...MAYBE...JUST ASK ME TO LEAVE?” he prompts, looking slightly desperate. “IN A NORMAL AND NOT OVERLY-INFORMATIVE WAY?”

“you don’t wanna know i’m jacking it,” Red says tentatively.

“YES, ODDLY ENOUGH, I DON’T!” Sunshine grins, tilting his skull like a large, flightless bone bird. Then his face falls….into guilt. It looks weird, and Red has a strange urge to immediately reassure him. He’s not sure why, and he wouldn’t know where to begin. Yeah, Sunshine’s a little like Edge, but he doesn’t _work_ the same. Red can’t just tell him he’s a worthless piece of shit and give him a brisk kick to the shin.

“YOU HIT YOUR HEAD...VERY HARD,” Sunshine informs him. “I WASN’T...SURE. THE FIRST WEEK. WHAT WOULD HAPPEN.” He’s looking down at his hands, wringing them slowly. Red reaches up and touches the back of his own skull. There’s a big scar there. He’s got a feeling he forgets it’s there sometimes.

Shit.

“hey,” Red says quietly.

Lots of quiet hey-ing going on today. Like a theme. Sunshine looks up at him.

“i don’t mind if ya wanna bunk up sometimes,” he says, and a bit of the guilt lifts from Sunshine’s brow. “it’s, uh,” it’s nice, and Red is very lonely, and the whole world aches with emptiness, and “it ain’t, uh, so bad. now n then.” Red makes an indistinct noise. “just, right now it’s a lil more _then_ , than uh, _now_? not now,” he finally says, relieved. “not tonight.” Then he snorts. “i got a headache.

“THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUFFERING ON MY BEHALF TO THIS POINT,” Sunshine deadpans. Red instincts tell him maybe reassurance doesn’t work _that_ different. “YOUR HEROIC ENDEAVORS TO ENDURE MY PRESENCE WILL SURELY FALL INTO LEGEND.”

Red starts giggling.

“legendary, huh? well, don’t forget to put down how unbearably good looking i am. tolerant, generous, hot as fuck. put that.”

“YOUR RELATIVE TEMPERATURE IS SURELY ONLY EQUALED BY YOUR LITERAL INTER-DIMENSIONAL DUPLICATE WHO IS ALSO LEGENDARILY TOLERANT OF MY SLUMBER PARTY HABITS,” Sunshine gripes gamely.

“you ain’t too hard on the eyes, either,” Red chuckles.

Sunshine rolls his sockets, since humans can’t see his eyes, he’s guessing.

“RATHER THAN DISCUSSING WHAT I’M HARD ON, I THINK I’LL GET OUT OF YOUR HAIR!!!”

Red lets his face shift into a suggestive smirk, widens his stance and bends his arms up in a ‘eyyy’ sort of gesture.

“you wanna gimme a hug for the road?” He lets a socket slide shut, gives him a lil shimmy-shrug.

The grin he receives in response has a cast Red’s learning means Sunshine thinks something is _actually_ funny. Like. For real.

“I DON’T THINK SO!!” he chirps, sockets gleaming. Sheesh. Anyone who’d doubt this is _Comic’s_ brother has another thing coming.

“BUT, CHEER UP! YOU CAN FEEL FREE TO HUG YOURSELF AT WILL IN YOUR HUT DESPITE THE LACK OF A DOOR!” Sunshine crows. “OR ALTERNATELY, THE BEACH, SEVERAL SECLUDED THICKETS, THE OCEAN, CAVES, THE EMPTY DWELLING ON THE OTHER SIDE OF TOWN, AND SEVERAL PLACES IT’S LIKELY YOU KNOW A SHORTCUT TOOOooodles~!!”

The last line dwindles like a bomb whistle as Sunshine...Papyrus….trucks like a Robert Crumb character right the fuck on out the doorless doorway.

Sheesh. Red _has_ been on a boat too long. Of course he could have just... _gone_ somewhere. Hell, he could have brought his whole fucking bed with him if he wanted, lickity-split.

“you’re an _asshole_ , sunshine!!” Red hollers gleefully. He doesn’t hear any response, not that he expected one.

He sighs, then just sort of crumples down onto his pallet with a heartfelt groan. He wrestles out of his peg pretty quick, too, groans instead of hissing (or worse, going silent) when he rubs ol stumpy. He takes the peg again, feels what’s padding it. Soft puffs of loose cotton, just like...well, he doesn’t want to think about that when he’s hankering to get crankering. Red tosses his leg away and loosens his proverbial corset, fluffs his nest and curls up in it like a toad in a hole. On his side, he gives _himself_ a big, hard hug. Just wraps his arms around and squeezes with maybe half his might.

Yeah…. _that’s_ it. The third hug makes him shudder out the last of the day’s tension, and he switches it up to touching his bones. His junk’s already starting to come out, and Red reaches for it eagerly despite the ghost of faint disappointment that always follows anymore. Red misses his cunt way more than he’s ever missed anyone else’s. He tries fantasizing and touching himself a certain way, but that well’s been dry for too long for him to make more than a cursory attempt.

His magic comes out same as always...feels as nice to touch it as ever. More, maybe. Like his body’s got a better working memory of what good sensations feel like, since there’s more of them happening these past few. Weirdly enough, even with the forgetting things issue, Red’s _mind_ feels easier than it has in a long time, too. But thinking like that makes him feel guilty, so he licks his hand, reaches downtown, and stops thinking about anything at all.

Still works fine, and Red shivers to his peak quickly without even having to try. But one doesn’t feel _done_ , and he plans to get his money’s worth out of the most privacy he’s had in...however long. He would usually think about Sugar Jaques, but right now that’s making him sad. Red casts about for some fresh fodder to go again. He’s not picky, but the pickings are slim regardless. The humans here aren’t any more to him than a collection of hostile or indifferent glances. Sunshine’s arms had felt damn good around Red, but it turns out that’s not working for Red’s dick. Too bad; he’s a looker, and he gives good hugs. But then again so is Red’s bro, and the resemblance is probably the issue. Or maybe it’s just Red’s hard-ass fingers.

Red giggles at himself in the haze of the jackin’-it zone, paws around for something softer to use. He finds the rejected shirt Comic brought him the other day, dries off his piece, then starts idly frotting against the almost-powdery smoothness. The shirt reminds him of Comic, so he goes with it. Mostly asked Comic about the dick sucking thing to get a rise out of him, but that’s not to say Red wouldn’t have put his _mouth_ where his mouth is if he’d actually managed to get one. Just to be contrary, he thinks about Comic doing that to Red instead. It turns out jacking off to him isn't any weirder than him existing in the first place.

For some reason the half-formed fantasy keeps splintering into how the sunset had looked painting Comic’s face, that honey-pink warring with the cyan-yellow shimmer of Comic’s tipsy flush. He’d wanted those bones for a necklace, or maybe just to touch him. See if he could smear the light with his thumb, make the color mingle with Comic’s magic. Red muffles a moan into his pillow, the idea abruptly yanking forth his timeworn recollections of how another monster’s magic feels actually _mingling_ with his own. In their mouth, in their cunt...fucked right up _inside_ him with whatever they got.

Red rolls onto his back and throws his leg-and-a-half wide open, sockets shut tight. He covers everything with the blanket, then gathers it up top and shoves a wad into his mouth. He puts the shirt over his pelvis, uses the heel of his hand to press hard at the base, and diddles the tip with his thumb. Then he imagines Comic: lazy and apathetic, stubborn and annoying, and as batshit in his own ways as Red, it turns out. An immoveable object…inexplicably moved by Red’s dubious appeal to throw him on the ground and rail him til he can’t remember his own name.

Bingo.

Red purrs happily into cloth and goes to town, doesn’t question a damn thing. His sacred quest to bust a nut supersedes petty concerns about what happens in the privacy of his own skull to get him there, be it kicking someone’s teeth in or remembering that really nice velvet pillow that eventually succumbed to jizz stains and cat piss.

‘Lazy asshole suddenly tops him like a boss with a romantic sunset beach fuck’ it is. Red could name a cocktail after it.

It is so good, in fact, Red notices some of the other soft bits between the bones of his pelvis coming out. He ignores them like usual, since rubbing them never did anything. Adding ‘everyone’s still there and watching’ right before he blows his lid inspires him to go for another. By the time he’s dazedly growling his final peak into the soaked blanket between his teeth, he’s on some kinda weird trip about Comic telling everyone how ‘well-behaved’ Red is while wearing Red’s pussy like a wristwatch.

Red falls asleep immediately afterwards, but he tries to make a note to trot that one out again for emergencies as his consciousness dissolves. That’s blowing some high quality loads.

Red’s surprised to feel wistful in the morning to wake up alone for the first time since..who fuckin’ knows. He feels it even before he opens his sockets, along with the truth that he _hadn’t_ been left alone while he slept here until now. His sleep hazed mind puts _that_ together with some of the faces Sunshine’d been pulling last night…. And he realizes it hasn’t all been for Red’s benefit, either. Everyone gets lonely. Especially monsters torn from their usual dimensions and hurled across spacetime into whatever the hell this is.

Red opens his sockets in a surprisingly not-horrific mood.

“Mrrrp?”

“’m not sayin’ you don’ count,” Red rattles wetly at his iguana-half, along with the fursplat that brought Red’s rightful share as a superior being with opposable thumbs. “’ppreciate the room service.” Red clears sleep-thick magic in his skull, thinking non-reptilian breakfastish thoughts. He wants to go visit his bro, but might need to smell what ye olde rock is cooking first. He flinches as the cat stands up, partly on his face but mostly not. Doesn’t even fart. He’ll call it a win.

It leaves.

“what, you don’t wanna break a tooth on my shortribs first?” Red giggle-croaks after it. “ey!! pay yer child support, ya deadbeat!!”

Then he stirs, notices the shirt firmly glued to his pelvis due to his lack of cleanup, and considers that perhaps it’s just as well.


	10. Smiling Strange

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Polaris – Hey Sandy](https://youtu.be/qkGtGt1L6iU)

“I found you.”

Red huffs amused acknowledgement through his clenched teeth, doesn’t bother looking up from laboriously picking out stitches.

“so you did. well. you’re gonna have to wait til i’m finished here, cause i’m not gonna teach you bareassed.”

He’s only shirtless, and his pretties cover half his chest, but still. It’s the principle of the thing.

She’s “found” him a few other times, but he’s been pretty busy burying his bodies…and getting his ship’s corpse squared away, too. Today’s looking a bit more idyllic, although he’s still far from idle. The humans don’t seem to mind if he hangs out in the village common area, even when his flagrantly nonhuman body is on display, so long as he’s doing normal shit. Well, doesn’t get more normal than this.

Chei gets closer now that she knows Red’s not going to lunge suddenly. Speaking of principles, part of him wants to do it now as a lesson, but eh. He hadn’t been kidding about not interrupting this. His shirt is in his lap, slender phalanges tangled deep in the bushes of lace on the sleeves. Getting them out without destroying it or detaching part of it like he’s attempting to might actually be a problem.

He wishes he’d been more methodical when he started tacking this lace on in the first place. No rhyme or reason to it, just added on as it was acquired. It’s kind of a fucking shitshow, and getting enough of the same type free for his cape’s new collar is a pain in the ass. He already tried a construct, but he literally can't make one small enough. He’s starting to think he might have to unravel the whole-

“What are you doing to it?”

Red freezes, unnerved. He...may have forgotten she was there for a second. He steadies his breathing with some effort, then frowns at the lace he tore slightly. Red shows her the shirt rather than trying to explain, holding the frothy puffs apart to expose a seam. Then he demonstrates where he’s using his fingertip to pull thread, its curve hooking under to free it from the mess. He’s been pulling it whole to save the thread for reattaching, but now he’s got plenty of thread and remarkably little lace to show for it.

He looks at the meatsplat. She still has no idea what he’s doing. Red sighs.

“I’m trying to put some of this,” he shakes his tangled hands, “on here,” he jabs them at his cape, draped onto one of the sitting-lumps next to him. His cape doesn’t _need_ a collar, but the area where the old one used to be is a slightly darker color than the rest of it now, and it helps stabilize the ties so it doesn’t slide around when he gets energetic.

Chei comes and sits on a lump near him to wait, or watch. Red doesn’t much care, absorbed in figuring out a way to make his less-reliable-than-it-used-to-be mind crank out some basic problem-solving. In this case, how to remove part of this without just destroying it. His belt knife’s too big for work this delicate. Teeth’d work, but then he can’t see what he’s doing.

Red’s creaky thoughts finally supply a solution now that Chei is here.

“hey. you think i could borrow that pig-sticker of yours?”

Chei’s thick brows lift with delight, though she doesn’t smile or emote much otherwise. Red’s soul does a suspicious little wibble, and he ignores it. She pulls the cord around her waist to bring the sheath around, then removes the knife and presents it to him, childishly formal.

Red accepts it with a grunt, manages to free a hand quickly with it, then switches to do the other. It turns out the tiny, sharp blade is perfect for this. With Red’s dexterous fingers helping out, the remainder of the work is a matter of minutes. Red sighs in satisfaction and returns the blade as carefully as she’d given it.

“thanks a buttload, kiddo,” Red mumbles, then uses his teeth to trim up the little shreds left over on the selected pieces. He catches Chei’s expression out of the corner of his eye….and blushes.

Okay, so maybe the word his mind supplied automatically for “kiddo” is less like “child,” and more like, “daughter-to-me,” but that’s only because it’s less formal. Nothing special, most of the adults(?) here call her that.

She’s probably just excited he remembered she’s a girl.

Red glances over again as he sets the shirt aside and grabs the cape, neatens his lap and lines up the trimmed pieces. Chei is as fascinated as most humans by the jewelry dangling in front of, around, and between his ribs, watching it wink and sparkle in the dappled sunlight.

The humans he’d paid to help clean the ship a week or so ago had certainly eyed the baubles he’d offered hungrily enough, though they had a person looking over each to make sure he didn’t try pawning paste jewels off on them. And yeah, of course he’d been _going_ to, but respected their savvy enough to offer only real, if subpar, pieces.

To be fair, even Red’s pawnables are pretty choice, it’s just comparative. For example, nothing but death could get Red to give up his collar of egg-sized cabochon garnets that look almost exactly like his eyes, one of his few good features. If he ever wants to get laid again, he’s gonna need all the help he can get.

Red pops his needlecase out of his belt, thumbs aside the sturdy sailmakers for a fancywork sliver underneath, and gets to business.

“You do that really fast,” the meatsplat remarks quietly. Red grunts, most of his attention on what he’s doing. He splits off a little bit for Chei, and a little more for the human in the doorway opposite the common area staring at him like he’s gonna eat her fucking face or something. Dumbass. If Red was gonna eat her face, it’d already be _et_.

“sail on a boat tears, whoever’s closest has to fix it fast,” Red mumbles. “don’ matter if yer cap’n.” His eyes flicker over. She doesn’t know what a captain is. Good for her. “get someone strong ta hold it,” or use magic, “and sew as fast as ya can. And it’s gotta _hold_ , so you better be good at it, too.” Red huffs with a bitter little grin. “in this life, ya either git _good_ or get _dead_ , and i’m still alive. so.”

Red brings the thread up to his teeth, doesn’t bother coaxing his mouth out to feel with his tongue. He knows where the knot is without it, and snips it right above. All done. He holds it out, makes sure it sits right with his fists punching airily in the shoulders, then drops it in his lap and puts his needles away. He gets re-dressed, then stands with another laborious groan and looks around.

The person hovering in the door flinches when Red meets….his….eyes, but stands his ground for another minute. Then he turns around and flounces back inside. Red looks down at Chei, sees her face twisted with petulance as she stares after him. He’s got a feeling that’s the shitty dad or whatever.

“so. what do you usually use it for?”

“Use what for?” Chei’s distracted easily by the matter at hand, even if she doesn’t know what it is.

“knife,” Red grunts. “you got it for a reason, right?”

“Hunting.” She tries to look fierce about it. Whatever it is, it’s not really hunting and she knows it.

“show me.”

“Right now?”

“fer fucks sakes,” Red mutters, rubbing his forehead. “ _yes_ , right now.”

They take a stroll in the woods between the village and the beach, and Red gets the strong impression Chei runs around catching and knifing iguanas with a significantly lower success rate than Red’s cat. She doesn’t manage any on the way, and he’s not exactly surprised. Red finds a stick, eyes her knife, and breaks it into two pieces about the same size. By the time they get to the beach, Red’s got two “knives” that’ll do for what he has in mind.

He leads her to the surfline where the sand’s damp and packed, which is the best footing they’ll find outside the village. There’s a human soaking their ass in the surf a ways down one direction, looks like they’re drunk. Another one’s checking something in the beach oven, same place as the cookout before. He’s guessing that’s a designated cooking area. That human seems more interested in whatever they’re doing, but Red ignores them anyhow.

Chei looks unimpressed when he hands her a tiny stick.

“hokay,” Red exhales, then brandishes his own. “let’s see what ya got.”

Turns out what she’s got is increasingly frustrated child-noises as Red disarms her over and over. Eventually Red just grabs her stick-knife and throws it in the ocean. She stares at him, outraged.

“k. now do to me what i did to you last fifty times or whatever.”

He can tell she’s doing her best, which is actually more effort than he expected. But despite only being a bare few inches taller, Red’s been fighting for more than his own life for too long for her to do more than try hard and fail. She scrambles around rolling and dodging (and falling), around his one-eighth-speed, lazy swipes, making those kettle whistles every time he pokes her gently with the stick and drawls, “dead.”

He’s less bored than he thought he’d be, actually. He’s grinning as she crab-crawls frantically backwards, rolls away from a feint and scrambles sideways as he ambles forward like a hunched little goblin. He chuckles at her seagull shrieks, angry and maybe even a little scared. Thing is. He doesn’t notice the change in terrain until it’s too late, because he’s not used to being on anything except boards in recent years. It’s fatal error, turns out.

Chei’s hidden fistful of dry sand hits Red full in the face, and he drops like a sack of manure.

It’s in his sockets, rattling like rocks in his skull and he somehow screams T R U C E in his font, magic carving words into reality, even this one. Can’t be misunderstood, nor can Red’s fearful desperation. He writhes and claws at his face instinctively, but he’s already calming down after the initial shock of it. Still, if she comes at him pissed, a stick is good as a knife. Red’s blinded and confused til he clears this shit out of his skull, so he struggles up to hands and knee, weaving his head and blinking weakly.

“...call for the San?” she asks through shallow panting. “Do you need Papyrus?”

“no,” Red croaks and coughs, shaking his skull sharply to get the sand out. “no, you did good. s’okay, kiddo...”

By the time he flops back over onto his stupid bone ass, Chei’s squatting on her haunches next to him, nervously chewing at her fingers.

“The San says _never_ to hit angry,” she’s rambling. “Don’t throw angry, but I was! I didn’t-”

“ey!” Red interrupts, picking a piece of leaf out of his socket. "calm yer shit for a second." He can stick his finger in there, sure, but it feels fuckin’ weird. Not as weird as having a piece of leaf in there, but now it’s gone. Problem solved.

He uses his restored vision to asses that both the other humans definitely saw all that. The one at the beach oven halved the distance between them, but once they meet Red's gaze (he thinks, shit's still bleary), they turn to go back.

“you did good,” he repeats to Chei’s continuing dubiousness, scissoring his fingers to flick the leaf-bit away. “that’s precisely how you win a fight ya _can’t_ win. you’re gonna be just fine, thinking on yer feet like that.”

“I didn’t think,” she admits breathlessly. “I just did it.”

“exactly,” Red agrees. “i’m a-,” He doesn’t know her word for bully. “-an adult,” he changes it to, “and any adult coming at you like i just did? you take a fuckin’ _eye._ you scratch an’ bite, okay?”

He grins, starts polishing his dirty jewelry with his cape. He feeds her his best lines about the virtues of fighting dirty, a little rusty with the amount of time that’s gone by since Edge needed to be told that shit. He goes over the places humans are vulnerable, which she seems to know already. Chei’s way more interested in what he’s doing, and he lets her use a corner of the cape to polish some of em too. Lets her toy with and admire a string of pearls as a sop to her receding fear and concern, make sure there’s no hard feelings.

“Can I try it on?” she asks tentatively, and Red recoils with shock.

“no!” jerks out of Red’s skull automatically, and then he flinches back from her flinch. _Shit_. This kid’s got no way to know what a child wearing something like that means where Red’s from, but he still can’t help reacting. Red can doll up like a sweetie if he wants to, but no striper needs that garbage. He clears thick magic from his skull sheepishly, waves a hand in a useless placating gesture.

“no, just...uh, you...”

Chei’s chin wiggles as she stares at her lap.

“I know. I’m too ugly to wear such things,” she whispers. Red’s face changes so fast he feels the bone heat.

“who fucking told you _that_?” he hisses, scowling.

Of course she just shrugs and shakes her head, like it’s the whole world’s opinion instead of some bitter old man’s.

“t’eres un’ albondiga muy _linda_ , como _todos_ las niñas humanas,” Red rumbles, too indignant to bother with creoles. She giggles like the cute meatball he said she is, and he’s glad of it. She glances at him sidelong, oddly...yearning? The fuck?

“Maybe I’ll grow up to be pretty, someday,” she suggests shyly, like that’s someone else’s opinion, small but getting bigger. “Pretty as you!” Her grin returns, and Red’s perception files that away while the rest of him just fucking bluescreens.

Red was born too soon and too small, and scrambling for scraps while he should have been growing didn’t help. His wide, froggish face is split by a wormlike scar that ends at his missing tooth. He’s swaybacked and bandy-legged, or at least he used to be before he ended up missing one of them, and his convex ribcage makes everything he wears look strange and bunchy on him. He dresses like this because he thinks polishing a turd is funny.

Red’s been accused of just about everything in his time, but _being pretty_ is a new one on him. At least from anyone who wasn’t angling for a free blowjob.

“gonna be a lot prettier than _me_ , kiddo,” Red manages, since being quiet any longer will make her think he doubts it. “why you even worried ‘bout that shit, anyhow?” he asks, then stops due to the furiousness of her ears turning purple. Red growls in frustration and rubs his face with his cape. He is abruptly sick unto death of both talking and feelings in equal measure.

“you hungry? ‘cause i’m about to ask for another helping of sand,” he tries instead, and her face melts into amused relief.

They bullshit some more as Chei leads them over to the rocks, excited to demonstrate another “hunting” method. Turns out it’s plucking a fat bivalve shell out of a crevice and sliding the knife around the rim, then twisting to open it. The blob inside gets slit, and Chei pops the big piece in her mouth and swallows it.

“This part has sand inside,” she mutters absently, grabbing the other bit. She smushes it open with her fingers while she gnaws at the fibrous connection to the shell, and dunks it in the water to be rinsed with a splashy little wiggle. She pulls it back up then and sucks that down, too.

“A lot of people don’t like that part, but _I_ do,” she informs him, looking around for more critters. “The taste is strong.” Red’s soul does a funny little wibble for no reason whatsoever.

“You know a good place to find crabs around here?”

“Crabs?” She squints at him like she’s not a hundred percent sure what he’s talking about.

“crabs. gave you a leg that one night. uh. by the fire. crabs?”

“Crabs,” she says, nodding. She says it a little different than he does, more of a “huh” than a “yuh”. That’s the thing with creole languages; he knows most of the parts, but hers has its own syntax, and a generous smattering of words from a language he doesn’t recognize. Maybe whatever folks here spoke before other people starting showing up. When these humans don’t know what he’s saying, Red just cycles through the tributary languages’ words for it until they nod.

“Crabs are here, but not right now,” she informs him. “The water’s leaving. The crabs come when the water comes back.”

“When’s that?” he asks. He knows the tides, but he wants to see if she does, and how she’ll tell him.

Chei’s chewing a long, thin stem like she’s always doing, but uses the other hand to point up at the sun. She makes a clucking noise, does a slow arc with her pointing finger, then makes a wet “poit” sound with her mouth as she stops.

“huh,” Red says, squinting at the spot. Yep, that’s where the sun’s at the end of first dog watch, alright. And that’s when the tide comes in here.

She gives the next one to Red, then cleans her teeth with the stem before tucking it in her waist-cord. He finds a few more on his own, uses his belt knife. He tries the part with the sand, and it tastes pretty much like the rest of it, maybe a _little_ skunky. Good with a little salt water on it from the rinsing.

Another kind has a sweet taste, but the texture leaves a lot to be desired. Red sprinkles seawater in, then shows Chei he can cook it right there in his hand for the same reason Comic knows he can stabilize the plates. Different color of light, different effects on atoms n shit. She prefers some of them “fresh”(meaning raw), but he cooks all of his.

“you really are the San cousin?” Chei asks conversationally as they scoot down the rocks, find and munch down on a few more unlucky contestants. Red frowns thoughtfully. The way she says their name sounds like _sauna_ , sort of, which turns it into “the san”. It’s easier for them to say, and to be fair to them, until very recently there _was_ only one.

“not really,” he admits, and she nods like she expected it. “i’m just red.” Suddenly whimsical, he lolls out his tongue (still spattered with a few flecks of see-food, ha) to demonstrate. She giggles at the reminder that he literally is; in eye, magic, and in his joints. His scars are pinkish as well.

Then Chei says a different word he doesn’t know, nodding decisively.

“whazzat mean?” he asks idly, lapping salty broth from a half-shell. Wishes they had some grease to em, but you can’t have everything in life.

Chei stares at him like he asked her what the sky is. “It means you and the San are [word].”

“shite on a kite,” Red exhales. “ya really are fiveyears, ain’tcha?”

Offense creases her face dramatically.

“I’ve been _seven_ years old for a long time!! Ages and ages!” She straightens smugly. “ _My_ year turned while _you_ were still sick-in-bed!” She looks extremely miffed by Red’s snort, which makes him laugh harder.

“that long, eh?” Red squints up at the sun. He doesn’t bother hiding his amusement as she natters on.

Not that he pays attention, but as far as he can tell Chei spends her time trying to ride a pet pig (not for eating), bossing around kids smaller than her, killing small animals and eating them, constantly trying to do the three or four things she's not supposed to, and other normal kid crap. There’s also a lot of mysterious, complicated shit involving rocks, plants, seawater, and pretending. He assumes that’s the _playing_ thing kids are supposed to spend a lot of time doing, and it seems Chei’s got more chances to do that than any kid Red ever knew.

Which reminds him.

“hokay, kiddo,” he groans, standing up carefully on the slippery rocks. “it’s been real, but i gotta head out.”

“Why _yy_ y?” Chei whines emphatically. “I was going to hunt a big conch to share!”

“time to see my bro,” Red informs her quietly. His mouth's still out, so he makes the _poit_ sound for emphasis.

Chei gets a shifty look. It’s not good.

Red continues, “ _no_ , you can’t come too. no one’s goin’ in there.” She avoids looking at him, staring at the water. “hey!”

Chei jumps at his sharpness. Good. But the shifty look is still there, and that will not do. He waits til her gaze meets his, shuts his eyes but keeps the sockets open to trap it there.

“if i ever catch ya in there, ever _hear_ of you in there. i even see you sniffin’ _around_...”

Red combs his mind for an effective threat, but a kid that hasn’t seen killing doesn’t fear it. Not how she would have to for that to work. Might even take it as a dare, come to think of it...overstating can suggest the opposite, sometimes.

“...then we ain’t friends anymore,” he finishes, mostly on instinct. “ _ever_ again.”

He means it, so that helps her face fall the way he needs it to. He lets his eyes open again, takes in her crumpled expression.

“i ain’t mad atcha,” he adds to soften it. “just don’t _test_ me,” he says, a wheedling plea edging into his gruff rumble.

Welp. She starts crying anyways. Ugh.

Red leaves quickly, overcome with vague, confusing embarrassment. He grabs a stick once he hits the treeline, beheads a few plants, and makes a renewed commitment to avoiding things that make weird feelings happen to him. He resolutely blames the whack to his stupid noggin, wishes he had a better system for knowing beforehand what the feelings-causing things will be. He takes a flustered shortcut right to the woven door that has his brother behind it, so none of these podunk fuckos can stare at him.

“heya, shithead,” he mutters as he pushes the door open and closes it carefully behind him. “how’s trade?”

Comic cracks a socket open, but he doesn’t answer since he knows Red isn’t talking to him. And he doesn’t for quite some time. Red goes through his routine, shoots the shit with his silent bro, looks him over to make sure no one’s messed with him. He comes here as often as he can get away with, stays until he gets that drawing sensation in his soul again.

If whatever that is (whatever Red did) is hurting his bro…. Ugh. He’ll listen to Sunshine on this, because each time Red checks, a little less of Edge’s spine is missing. Red can argue with just about anything except results. Sunshine’s been doling those out, even if it’s a thimbleful at a time.

Red’s mind is wandering again. He looks at Comic, a distraction presenting itself.

“hey. what’s [word] mean?”

Comic grins real hard, sockets narrowing like Red’s cat when it’s about to bop him one.

“i mean. i c’n live with the mystery if linguistics is stressing you out,” Red says as Comic’s silent glee stretches. The amusement’s at his expense, but when is it not.

“depends on the context,” Comic lies smoothly. “how bout you fill me in?”

“how bout you give me an _example_?” Red simpers back, tilting his skull.

“[word] and [word],” Comic says short and sweet. If he had eyelashes he’d be fluttering them, and Red’s creaky thoughts finally supply the information that those were the names of two humans here. It means a kind of _relationship_. Ahhh, geez. Comic giggles, and Red realizes he’d growled faintly.

“what the fuck is that kid’s problem wi’ me, anyways?” Red grumbles.

“no problem with you unless you make one,” Comic supplies easily.

“well, she’s got problems, then. the hell am i stepping in, here?” Red growls at Comic's silent laugh-wiggles. "fuck's _sakes_ , last thing i wanna end up with is some kinda creepy human daughter-wife i gotta feed!"

“just ‘boring human shit’.”

Comic adds a wink, like Red doesn’t realize he’s quoting his own words back at him.

“i’m _asking_ , for mercy’s sake,” he groans in annoyance. “what’s her problem?”

“k. so.” Comic clears his skull, short and sharp. Maybe he really had been asleep before Red got here. “dad’s from the other side...the real other side, not the women's village. folks we don't get on with, yeah? and so was his dad. But his mom was from _here_ , so when his wife died _there_ ….he had ta come back, and he didn’t want to. thing is. if they wanted him, they woulda kept him. he ain’t no prize, ya see. no one here likes him either.

Comic gazes down at Edge, but his eyes harden and look past him.

“it doesn’t have to do with chei, but he makes that her problem. he says she ain’t got no prospects, and he can’t go back because of her.”

“doesn’t seem to me like she cares what he thinks,” Red says, and that hard gaze gets harder when it hits Red.

“gettin’ told you’re ugly and no one wants you around’s a big problem for a kid that little,” he says, quiet and serious. “and pretending you don’t care takes practice,” he hisses.

But Red’s gaze doesn’t flinch, and Comic falters, sensing he missed something. Red lets his mouth curl in disdain. Of course Red knows she’s _pretending_. He just cares enough not to call her out, even behind her back. Apparently Comic expected something else, but Red lifts his brows and stands firm. Maybe Red knows more about pretending not to care what people think than Comic does.

“i suppose it does,” is all Red says, but the wry tone makes cyan and yellow crawl across Comic’s zygoma. He grunts in quiet acknowledgement, and Red suspects he might've actually won this round.

“remember this thing?” Comic mimics the weird formal motion Chei had made the day she kicked Red’s ass. Well. The other day before today.

“that’s just kid shit, right?”

Comic hums ambivalently. “sorta. she ran away ‘fore you could say no, not that you knew you could. but basically it’s like...” He frowns. “kids where you’re from take after people?”

“yeah?” Red blinks cautiously. Pick out some adult to copy so you can try and figure out how to be one. Learn a trade, if you’re lucky, or just how to stay alive long enough to get to the next meal. There’s the normal kind, and then other other kind folks like to pretend doesn’t exist. The reason Chei ain’t walking around in Red’s pretties in this life or the next.

“the way the dad’s folk do it, it's like….chei gets to follow you around, decide if you’d be a good husband when she’s old enough to pick somebody.”

Red grimaces. “well, thass fuckin’ weird.”

“they’re _all_ weird, red,” Comic shrugs. Red can’t argue with that, but he did not _agree_ to jack nor shit.

“is it serious?”

Comic shakes his head.

“not how you mean,” he says lightly. “nothin’ anyone gets held to, no promises. just try and be nice to her, okay?”

Red dry-swallows guilt, and Comic ignores it.

“so,” Comic continues, then stops. Red can tell from his face something’s up.

“just fuckin’ spit it out, whitey. i’m getting tired of this game.”

“you got your folks squared away?”

Red just waits.

“we gotta process the plates before the salt finishes eating em,” Comic admits flatly.

Red looks at the door, then tilts his skull at it. Comic takes his invitation, and they head to the threshold to make sure there aren’t any eavesdroppers. They stand at the open door to be their own lookouts, talking brass tacks in Hands.

“you mentioned a bath. how many does it hold?”

“just one. the pan needs rinsing every five hours, so we have to stay there the whole time,” Comic informs him. “we can take turns being the one who’s gotta wake up n do it.”

“for six days, at _least_?” Red objects immediately, having already done the math and thinking of his brother.

“he’s in good hands,” Comic says mildly, but it still pisses Red off that he’s that transparent.

“why not just shortcut when we gotta go there?”

Comic’s already shaking his head.

“gonna need everything we got for melting the glass,” he says. “and supply runs on top of that. it needs babysitting like you wouldn’t believe, and animals could still get in there, maybe. i’m not gonna take the chance.”

“oh shit,” Red marvels, abruptly realizing what Comic’s up to. “you made a housing?”

“mak _ing_ ,” Comic grunts for emphasis. “it’s a pain in the ass, and now i gotta change what i already did. it’ll go faster with you there, though.”

“well, it doesn’t fucking matter. we gotta wait til he gets up.”

“no. it won’t _wait_ that long, red.”

They stare at each other.

 _Comic_ won’t wait that long.

Red realizes Comic’s going to start fucking with Red’s machine soon, whether Red’s there or not, wants that or not. Maybe whether _Comic_ wants to or not, the way he’s been fucking with his own. Red might be lucky he didn’t start already, despite it having been underwater until recently, and him knowing letting the ocean in wholesale might just fucking melt it.

He can imagine Comic sitting up long nights watching over him and Edge, thinking about doing just that on purpose.

Maybe he just wants to be free of it. Just give up. Red knows how that is.

Or it could be that he just can’t stand being _alone_ with it anymore.

Red glances back into the open doorway, watches his brother’s silent breathing.

He knows how that is, too.

Just one throbbing, veiny problem with the whole operation Comic’s outlining so helpfully.

“i ain’t leaving him with humans again.”

Comic tilts his skull in silent question. He’s a good liar, Red’ll give him that. But not about this.

“don’t play fuckin coy w’ me,” Red grates. “someone’s gotta spell your bro.”

Comic’s face does something complicated.

“you won’t take our vetting, even if they already helped a lil bit before you got up.”

“nope,” Red says crisply. There wasn’t anything he could do about it then. Doesn’t mean he’s not going to do everything he can now.

Comic averts his gaze. He looks...really uncomfortable.

“k,” he sighs finally. “i’ll see if they’ll talk to you.”

“what the fuck does _that_ \--”

He trails off into a frustrated growl, because Comic’s already gone. Red just stands there, rubbing his face and feeling awfully tired for a minute. Then he wanders back inside his brother’s little room and shuts the door behind him.

Red has a seat and watches him breathe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 


	11. Unforgiven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Apocalyptica (Plays Metallica By Four Cellos) – The Unforgiven](https://youtu.be/1qcePvj_HMU)
> 
> I don’t usually hardsell my musical decorations ^ , but this is a good’un. The link is to a live version that is far superior to the album version. Highlights include swooningly baroque embellishments and the crowd singing the lyrics faintly like a chorus of ghosts.

Red is still watching his brother, waiting for whatever comes next.

When he sits quiet like this and pays attention...he can _feel_ it. How Edge is stuck there. Transfixed at that moment he realized what Red was doing, and his angry rejection of it. Edge is both unconscious, and very mad at him. Once he notices, he can’t not notice. He tries to hold on to the hope he can clear it up once Edge wakes.

But he’s mostly just stewing in the reality that this is taking _fucking forever_ , just like Punch and Judy here _said_ it would.

It’s one thing to have them _say_ that. Entirely another to actually be experiencing it. And yeah, it’s possible a part of Red was _sure_ Edge would somehow rally and flout all of their expectations. Red’s baby bro has always been a ridiculously quick healer. Bounces right back from shit that laid him out flat, and would have had anyone else out of commission for a week.

“how long you gonna stay in the fuckin’ _fridge_ , bro?” Red whines quietly. “c’m _on_ , man! what’m i supposed to do without you talking trash? shit’s boring as hell without you roasting my chestnuts about it. you think these podunk fuckers can hold a _candle_ to your sick _burns_?” A sad grin creases his face. “i’m gonna get a buncha these meatbags to gangbang me up on the roof here, see if that gets a _rise_ outta ya. my porn name’s gonna be _the brothercucker_. you're gonna be my manager an' fluffer. we'll be the night o’ the living dead, and the three-legged mister ed.”

Red huffs a few quiet giggles.

“i’m sayin’ you got an ugly ass horseface, bro,” he whispers tenderly. “and that makes me the horse’s ass,” he finishes concisely for his his silent brother.

Red snickers some more, remembering his last heart to heart with Sunshine here. He’d explained the “pirate name” game, tossed out a few greatest hits. Sunshine had snickered and blushed at ‘Dickless and Dicklesser,” then confessed most of the humans here made the same assumption about him and _his_ brother. If they can’t see something immediately, there must be nothing to see.

Dumbasses. It’s like they don’t even look at what’s around em. Red’s seen plenty of iguana's nasty purple double dongers by now, and that shit only comes out when _they_ wanna use it, too. Usually to hump out some of their gross little snot rockets on a pretty beach stone Red was about to grab to put in his hut, perverted little weirdos.

He’d told Sunshine all about his brutal defeat at Lizardjizz Rock too, and he’d nodded in properly mournful sympathy. Red even forgave him for the hilarity creasing the edges of his sockets when he told him it was like a rite of passage here, tacitly admitting he’d had his own incidents with insidious lizards and their inexplicable cloacal yearnings. Of course then he’d wanted Red to come up with a pirate name for _him_ , and then promptly rejected all of them in favor of “Good and Cool Pirate Papyrus Who Is Cool.”

Thinking about it helps distract him from checking under the blanket again, despite the fact that he already did that twice. His brother’s guts are still gonna be lying there, and no more bone will be stolen back from the void until Sunshine sits down for another healing session. Besides, he’s expecting company, and the last thing he wants is some fucking _human_ seeing his bro’s squishy bits hanging out.

As if the thought made it happen, Red hears the crowd around the door start up with their fucking caterwauling.

The door opens, and Red flinches.

It’s Rags, because of course it is.

And he’s scared. Not as scared as on the ship, though, and for good reason. Nothing to do with Red being able to kill him faster than a blink. They both know he can still do that. More of a combo situation, really. Red’s not captain anymore, and Rags has very little left to lose.

Red was right to have this happen in his brother’s presence. Edge is a silent arbiter, a sword on the mattress keeping them on their best behavior. Such as that is. Rags is panting shallowly, flexing his hands like he’d love to wring Red’s bony neck. He had a feeling. There were a few others on his crew who’d have beef to this degree, but most of those were laid out on the beach.

The beating Red had given Rags….that’s outside the ship’s charter. Red broke his own laws along with Rags’s shin. His brother, Teebz, even _Sugar Jaques_ had given him shit over that one. Ship’s justice is one thing, but Edge had doled that out in front of everyone, Rags counterintuitively winning their approval...and their personal sympathy, once it got clear that he’d also absorbed the brunt of Red’s temper beforehand. Getting bullied and humiliated in a hallway ain’t any kind of justice, even on Red’s shitshow of a pirate scow.

“so,” Red starts, voice rough and unprepared for whatever this conversation’s about to be. “you ever get a chance to read up on that thing i toldja ‘bout? ask around, maybe?”

Edge had scribed the charter and chosen the wording, something along the lines of _intentional_ _violation of another’s person_ and _summary execution_. Over time he’d learned most boats have that kinda rule, but those that don’t float don’t understand that on non-military ships they _are_ , in fact, enforced.

“I know you chop people up and let them rot.”

He’s right, so Red doesn’t argue with that.

“not that part. i’m talking about how if you did something fucked up, i can tell by looking at you.”

“Then what did I do?” Rags says shakily. “What could I have done to-”

“it’s not like that,” Red interrupts quickly, quietly. “this is somethin’ i gotta do on purpose, and it ain’t about…. _before_.

i didn’t do it then, you woulda felt it.”

Rags’s face does something mysterious.

“The San did something.” He says it like the humans do here, made awkward with his different accent. Red supposes that makes sense. Rags looks pretty normal, but he talks like the ones called _frawnsay_ , not _espanyuh_ or _yoruba._

Red grunts in noncommittal acknowledgement, but private approval worms its way into him anyhow. Sure, Comic said _vetting_ , but Red had no reason to believe he’d actually been thorough. Regardless, that doesn’t change what Red needs to do here.

“yeah, well. i’m ‘the san’ too.” Red makes his click-suck noise, and Rags quivers.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“means if you wanna visit here, i’m gonna do the same thing.”

Rags gets even more pissed off. Apparently Comic hadn’t let on why Rags couldn’t come around anymore.

“Fine,” he chokes, hands wringing Red’s ghost-neck again. “Get it over with.”

Red looks deeper than skin, puts Rags’s soul on the scale. He ignores all the shit that’s none of his business, although there’s some big issues having to do with how Red thinks of…. “him”. Humans and their fucking guessing games, almost as bad as Comic.

Rags hasn’t messed with Edge, hasn’t hurt him. Won’t let anyone else hurt him. Won’t let Red hurt him, either, and that’s…well. Red can’t say he doesn’t deserve the doubt. Doing this in Edge’s presence was the best call Red could have made, because that fondness doesn’t extend to Edge’s brother.

Rags is better than some, worse than some.

There’s a lot of tears by the time he stops, and Red ignores them for a few minutes.

“He beat me because he had to,” he says, low and harsh. “You did it because you wanted to.”

Red didn’t need the explanation, but he takes his medicine. It’s bitter.

“yeah,” he whispers.

“My two elder sisters are in a brothel. I _told_ them I would make the money to pay their debt, and maybe buy us a house. You know I’m not bad with a needle, and they’re better. I could have bought _cloth_.” Rags’s breath tightens to a grunt. Red continues to listen to what he already knows. “Now I have no money, no prospects, no way to know if they are safe. They will think I am dead. You didn’t know any of that, and you did not care.”

“nope,” Red lies. What he knew and what he cared about doesn’t matter anymore.

After a minute, he looks at Rags’s face. There’s no flinch. Red doesn’t either, cause he’s seeing what he needs to see. Rags will guard Edge like family, and that’s all that matters. In fact, someone’d have to take Rags out completely to get to Edge, and that’s the most anyone could expect.

“you gonna watch him for me?” he whispers.

“No,” Rags answers, and Red nods in relief. However Rags is feeling about Red doesn’t come into it with Edge. Red would only allow this guard from someone with their own reasons, not because they want to suck up to Red or his brother. Which he’s gonna, and eat whatever consequences come his way. Now for the other shit, since he was asked to get it over with quickly.

“you still a man?”

“I never was.”

Red nods. “Name you put on the paper?”

“Fake,” they report with satisfaction. “And you can keep _all_ of your _names_ for me out of your mouth from now.”

Red doesn’t bother pointing out Edge had actually been the one to come up with “Rags”. Taking the heat for his brother is just a sunbeam when he’s staring down at a still form that can’t take one more degree of heat. Edge already got burned to a crisp, on Red’s watch. Red doesn’t bust out this particular blade unless the situation’s dire, and for good reason. In Red’s hand, it cuts both ways.

And...whoever this is, Red had tortured them in a hallway for about ten minutes straight, humiliated them in ways he knew were especially grotesque to humans, and broken their shin as an afterthought so every step they took would remind them not to piss him off. Then he’d ordered them whipped so hard they’d be bloody for a month.

And that had been how he’d decided to introduce himself to the new greenstick.

Red sighs.

“gotta call ya somethin’, sweetheart.”

“charlotte,” they say sourly after twenty seconds of resentful silence.

“red,” he answers promptly. he’s not even the captain of his own fucking life anymore. “wish i c’d say well-met, but-”

“May we _never_ meet again,” they spit. Then they literally spit.

Charlotte turns on their heel and leaves.

“that went pretty peachy, eh?” Red sighs at Edge in the stillness left afterward, if not silence. The caterwauling grows. “yeah, i know i fucked up, bro. ya don’t have to rub it in.” Red reaches out and literally rubs Edge’s frontal bone for a minute. He fusses with the blanket, suppresses the urge to pull it back again, then finally gives in. His mouth drops, he licks his thumb, marks Edge’s forehead just like Comic showed him on those beach corpses. It gives him the strength to get up and leave before the soul vampire bullshit starts happening again.

Red growls as he wades through the riled clowder of cats outside the door to Edge’s private berth. They’re all the ship’s cats that ain’t Red’s, which Comic rescued and then immediately misplaced responsibility for. Sunshine habitually marks the door to the sickroom, but these little shits didn’t start _this_ until Red started marking it, too.

Usually it's just one or two, sniffing around and leaving headless rats. The only time all of them gather is when Red goes in, and they’re always like this when he comes out. He should’ve known they’d figure it out. Just because the cats won’t go inside doesn’t mean they don’t blame anyone who enters or exits for doing so. Especially Red, since he’s the one who inadvertently told them where Edge _is_.

“wouldja fuckin’ shut _up_ , already?” Red sighs against their accusatory meowing.

Then he marks the door again despite himself. _His_ brother is in there, and dumbass, nibbly little _critters_ better steer clear. The meowing increases with a distressed, bassy warble like when they’re trying to shit a fishbone or something. In this case, they’re expressing just how much they resent Red for keeping Edge away from them. Drives him fucking nuts, mostly because he’d be squatting right in the middle of the geek show biting off rat heads and yowling along if he didn’t have other shit to take care of. Speaking of which, the next time he looks up from the cats trying to headbutt his peg out from under him, Comic’s there.

“you got a verdict?”

Red grunts peevishly. “you really think the odds are good that went _well_? you might wanna spread the word dusting me has consequences for the golden boy in there.”

Comic tilts his skull at Red speculatively.

“you know how old charlotte is?”

“paper said 20,” he husks out in sudden alarm. “is that oldbones or somethin’? ain’t their hair supposed to go light?” Red’s skull prickles with sudden sweat, wondering if the shin splintered cause it was extry-brittle with oldbones disease. Except some of them have hair that light anyhow, especially the really young ones that turn dark later. Comic’s obviously enjoying Red’s discomfiture, but Red ain’t chuckling.

“is she a fuckin _kid_?” Red is…. _really_ bad at human shit, and Edge ain’t around to steer him right. If Chei told Red she was 20, he might’ve believed it for a day or two. “i ain’t no-”

“paper was right,” Comic interrupts. “and she’s grown, not stripes. just….fresh out of em, like.” He sighs. “they aren’t the _same_ as monsters, red.”

“She?”

Comic’s mouth tucks down at the edges for a second. “yeah.”

Red sighs. Edge had known, but it’s not the same thing.

“anyhow. for them, it’s not something you...do? time just goes _by_ , and they get another year older. it’s something that happens _to_ them whether they’re ready or not. charlotte wasn’t ready, red. makes her pissed off at the whole world, not just you. that make sense?”

“not really,” Red grunts irritably, and Comic gets a thoughtful look on his face.

“how’d edge put off stripes?” he tries.

“handed me my ass til i yielded,” Red says, baffled. “took the big-britches little shit 17 tries ‘cause he started when i was barely out of em myself.” Red’s not too proud to brag. “how the fuck else wouldja do it?”

Comic looks as bemused as Red feels.

“do it yourself when you’re ready. or, uh. get three adults to vouch if it’s contested.” He looks around, even though they can hear the humans more than see them. “makes you wonder, huh? place like this.”

“wonder what?”

“how there are all different kinds of humans, with different ways of doing stuff.” Comic’s grin twitches. “i got it….really stuck in my head, you know? can’t help it. there’s not that many monsters underground, so i guess i never realized just how many humans there _are_. or how different they could be from each other. but….i dunno. makes you think. i always worried about humans getting along with monsters. but now i wonder stuff like...how monsters might get along with other monsters?” He winks at Red pointedly. “ones that might do stuff a little differently than they’re used to.”

He eyes Red like he’s a hobby experiment fermenting on his extra desk or something. Should be offputting, but for some reason it makes Red able to put his fresh ghosts aside a little, the living and the dead. Long enough to get manipulated back toward the info Comic’s mining him for.

“you really think it’ll work, huh?” Red lets it sound just as dubious as he feels. Comic doesn’t even shrug. Just waits for Red’s conclusion after whatever happened in there. As if he didn’t listen in on the whole shebang, sneaky little fucker.

“i’ll do it,” Red grunts, then cuts off Comic’s burgeoning excitement with, “starting night after next.”

“red-”

“no _sooner_ ,” Red interrupts tightly, and whatever creeps into his aspect stills Comic’s protests.

“...okay.” But Comic’s giving him that fucking _look_ again. Comic argued, sure, but apparently he was expecting way more of a fight on Red’s end.

“what?” Red snaps. “you draw a dick on my face last night or something’?”

“nah, i’m saving that for _our_ slumber party,” Comic grins. Above it, his eyes are too small for reassurance. Not that they do anything as stupid as trusting each other, but they get on better than Red expected. Gives him enough of a wedge to get a peek at what’s behind that opaque, lazy grin. Comic’s thought about it a lot, and still doesn’t know _why_ Red’s agreeing to help him at all. Red thinks about that. He also thinks about breaking in greensticks, and how it might be advantageous sometimes to actually fucking _explain_ what he’s doing to someone he’s doing it _to_. Or...with. Whatever.

Red makes a fateful decision. He offers information for free.

“this’s got a rat’s chance in hell of working, no matter what we pull out of our asses here on gilligan’s island,” Red grunts sourly. He looks down at the cats again. They’ve calmed a little, but one of them is making good headway shredding the woven door, and another arrives to drop off a rotten clam in the gift pile against the wall. “but, uh. thanks for giving me somethin’ ta do with m’self while i wait for my bro to stop being such a lazyass,” Red mutters, rubbing his carpals against his trochanter nervously.

He looks back up at Comic, who’s more surprised then he should be. Uh oh.

“i’m still not sure how you can forgive me for-”

“that’s ‘cause i don’t,” Red says, voice clanging flat as a manhole cover.

Comic’s eyes shrink to pins. Red only said it because it’s the truth, but Comic’s too rattled to school his face for a second. He’s on the defensive, and Red didn’t keep himself and his bro alive this long by failing to take miles out of inches when they’re offered. Red hums thoughtfully, then makes his suck-click noise.

“think you got the wrong idea, hoss,” he says quietly. “ _my_ cards are on the table-,” even if Red’s not the one who put them there, not by choice. Just the state they’d been found in gave away far more than Red ever would willingly, but that’s the shit sandwich on his plate.

“-and i meant what i said to ya so far.” He huffs through a softly bitter smile. “what i remember of it, at least. gonna keep it mellow as much’s you’ll let me. i figured you knew why.”

Comic’s got his expression back under control now. A tiny, single shake of his skull. Red grunts speculatively. This could go a few ways from here, and they both know it.

“now, one thing you never did was say you were _sorry_ ,” Red explains like he’s selling something.

Things would have gone differently from _there_ if Comic had pawned off something that limp on Red, canceling out the rest of what he _did_ do. Apologizing for something unforgivable? Might as well piss on Red’s teeth and tell him he’s at the dentist. Maybe Comic’s head doesn’t quite follow, but the way his grin slips when Red says _sorry_ suggests his instincts do.

Red’s done plenty of unforgivable things in his life, starting with the slow reaction that left his brother’s socket cracked for the rest of _his_ life. About half of them weren’t even on purpose, and about a quarter of those when he didn’t have any other choice. Hell, Red’s still riding high on misplacing his baby bro’s _arm_ somewhere in the fucking Caribbean, for that matter.

None of that changes facts.

“some things, forgiveness ain’t in it,” Red explains almost kindly, “so you gotta take it round back and give it a lil shovel-tap. put it out of its misery, and then in the ground…but you don’t ever _forget_ it. just no point in _fiddling_ with it anymore, ya _ken_ , bonebag? it is what it is, and that’s all there is to it.”

Comic doesn’t like that, but Red’s not here to be liked. He’s not _here_ under his own steam at all, and the reason’s standing right in front of him. He said whoever did this would pay, and yeah. Comic’s paying right the fuck now, cause putting up with Red ain’t exactly a long walk on the beach now, is it?

How Red feels in the _other_ direction….well. That ain’t in it either.

(It’s possible he might even be grateful to Comic, because there might’ve been some tiny part of him that still worried _Red_ did something to cause all this. No matter that he hadn’t so much as lifted the machine’s skirt since a certain someone took a swan dive into the void, and...)

Red shoves _that_ right back down in the weird-feelings hole where it belongs. Comic’s about to say something anyhow.

“outta curiosity….you had an asgore, right?”

Red stares at him.

“he ever get his fluffy mitts on any human souls?”

Red’s expression cracks, and sharp, bitter laughter drains out of him.

“hoo….yeah, that’s a-” He stops. “you’re fuckin’ _serious_ , ain’tcha?” Red scowls. “why the hell did you even need that _frisky_ meatbag, then?”

Comic shakes his head, a faint smile playing across his face like he got whatever answer he needed, the smug little shit.

“i just...think i know what you mean, is all. when the forgiveness ship’s already sailed and there’s nothin’ to be done. it just is what it is, when you got a _job_ to do.”

Red reassesses his sitrep on wherever Comic came from again. Apparently that shit was a lot more complicated than even Red suspected. And based on these two’s cagey shit about literally everything, it already sussed like a lowkey fuckarow despite them looking fairly intact on the surface.

“well. we got a job too, starting night after next.”

“guess we do,” Comic drawls. “what’s your bro gonna think about what you been up to?”

Red’s magic flares so hard, his suddenly clenched fist sparks until a shower of waste heat hits the sand. The cats yowl in alarm and flee.

“you don’t need to worry about what my brother thinks til he _can_ again,” Red growls.

“hey, just wondering if i’m gonna have to deal with some family feuds out here,” Comic says slick as goose shit. “your, uh. haily-mary not-healing shit aside, if you got some kinda-”

“everything i _ever did_ was for him, an’ it always _will_ be!” Red screams, magic sparking again.

Then he recoils from his own words so hard he stumbles, because that’s not the kind of shit he’d ever hear himself saying in any ‘verse. True shit, the kind that ain't for _saying_. What the fuck.

Red slaps a lascivious grin over his unprecedented slip like the world’s least effective bandage and adds, “well, 'cept askin’ to suck your dick.” He strengthens his leer by will alone, runs it unseeing up and down Comic’s body. “that was just for _me_.”

Comic just stands there, hands still in his pockets. Red only hears his own weird, shaky breathing.

“yeah, well.” He clears wavering magic in his skull with a short, sharp noise. “smell ya later.”

Red takes a shortcut to his crab traps, hauls em up. Makes it easier not to think about anything that happened today. At least the soggy basket's full enough Red almost lets one go, then decides he’ll leave it in the common pile for whoever didn’t wanna do shit today. The humans don’t stare at him so much anymore, but no one talks to him much, either. He doesn’t see Chei anywhere, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Or maybe it does. Maybe Red’s the biggest piece of shit ever walked the surface of this shithole planet, but what the fuck does he know. Doucet probably didn’t think he was all that bad deep down, either.

It’s been a long day.

He goes home, whatever the hell that means anymore. He kinda wishes he’s just washed that pretty rock and kept it after all. It’s looking kinda lonely in here, even with all the other stuff Red’s brought back. And his roommate, of course. Fucking freeloader never takes _his_ turn pulling up the crab traps, does he. Red goes to the corner and lights some candles. The he lifts the overturned basket on top of a big stack of em, level with his own face.

Tibam’s skull gleams whitely, pristine where Red rubbed it with fine, clean sand until it was smooth inside and out. He replaces the flowers stuffed in the hole with fresh, then presents the plate with a choice portion of Red’s meal on it.

Piggy’s teeth are in a soft pouch beneath the basket stack too, and there’s a fingerbone added to one of Red’s necklaces that ain't for sale nor trade. Everyone else got buried or tossed in the drink according to their wishes. And Red’s carrying them out to the letter, explicit or implicit.

“yeah, that’s right, teebz. got some meat for ya again.”

Now, Red is pretty damn sure this little _prias_ is not something ‘people’ do. It’s just some morbid, cockamamie shit Tibam wanted. But…he was a special guy, knew all kinds of special shit. Red didn’t care that he was crazy as fuckin balls, that’s allowed. And yeah, Red ain’t captain anymore, but that doesn’t mean he can dodge this forever. Besides, it just kind of feels….right.

Tibam had gone over the details enough times complaining how he didn’t do this for _his_ folk, couldn’t cause he was halfway dead himself and by then it was too late. But he said that’s why they never stopped haunting him. Their ghosts always yammering in his ears about how he let them die, screaming and hollering all night long until he drank rum and sucked smoke enough to let him get some fucking sleep.

Part of Red hopes that by doing this for Tibam, all the ghosts he’d been carrying can get some rest, too. It’s Red’s fault he’s dead, so he’s making sure Tibam’s haunting _Red_ instead of any of the hapless fuckers here minding their own business. None of them are any more sick nor crazy than they’d been before Red and his army of ghosts showed up, so he’s assuming it’s working. At least once he started, which was long enough for Teebz’s skull to get mostly clean on its own.

“thanks for the grace period, t-dog,” Red whispers absently. “mkay. open wide for the airplane...” He’s got the mandible with the skull too, just for this part. Red sets the dish in front of the skull, then parts the teeth carefully. He sets the food alight with a finger, then blows through his mouth to send the smoke between the teeth until it’s all gone.

Red sighs, marks off the stick next to it. He thought it’d been a week, but there are ten marks on the stick. Guess this is his last night doing this. He’s glad he brought him his favorite….well, Red’s favorite. He got the impression that’s what matters. It’s hard to keep track of days here, just like Comic had said. Guess he could have started with Comic tomorrow after all, but he’s fine with having a breather once his karmically enforced community service with a skull is done.

Tibam never said what he’s supposed to do with it after the ten days, though. Red supposes he’ll….bury it? Maybe. Eh.

“guess i’m really gonna be here for a while, huh, teebz?” Red sighs, lighting a dried stick of plant shit that smells nice and pokes it into the sand. Bought a fucking bale of it off the human that watches Chei all the time for a nicer tourmaline ring than he really wanted to give up, but he’s got four times as many rings as fingers…. _and_ toes. He reaches down and strokes soft fur; stupid cat only sneaks into his lap when he’s trying to do _other_ shit, and half the time he doesn’t notice til it’s been there a while. Squirms right in under his guard cause Red smells it coming, knows it’s no threat. Smells like home. Smells like this place too now, blending it all together. Cat smell and wooden (ship) smell and sea smell…human smell. Death smell from the skull, but mellowed out and clean. Clean death smell.

Red pets the cat some more. Guess he’s gotta stay put for a little bit before bed, might as well chat.

“yeah, i can smell how dead y’are,” he tells Tibam conversationally. “but don’t you worry. i cleaned you out good, what the little critters didn’t get. got the perfume sticks you wanted. ain’t like cap’n peely’s beach; that smelled like human shit on fire. cause it was, i guess,” Red muses. The insides of his people and Doucet's “expendables” spraying the flaming trees, all charnel catbox and spats of bloody hair.

“y’know, i thought i’d remember it better once i had time to settle, but i think more’s gone than it _was_? that’s the last thing i remember, now.” The cat lifts its head, and Red scritches under its chin with his fingerpoints. It starts drooling. “i don’t remember deciding to come here, even though…it was off course, right? had to be me. musta given the order to head this way, but….”

Red sighs.

“saw, uh, charlotte today. you remember her.” Red smiles. “you gave me a real earful over _that_ sneaky lil asshole, and i deserved it. you always….” Red trails off. “uh. turns out they got that grapesmust plant here you shoehorned into my gullet, or whatever you called it. mustard plant? asked sunshine about it. he said it cooks down real nice, but the seeds are in these little...pods? he couldn’t show me one cause they’re brittle, i guess. gotta get em before they dry out.”

Red tells Tibam a whole lot of nothing much, then gets to the important thing.

“i know he _says_ he’s gonna wake up, but. what if he _don’t_?” It’s thick and wet-sounding. Sunshine says the crying jags might not go away, since they happen sometimes even when he’s fine. He’ll just be eating his dinner, and boom. Here come the waterworks. Says it could be to do with that bump on the head he took. It’s all sealed up now, but he’d confessed eventually the hole had been bigger than Tibam’s. Red rasps tears off his face, wipes his fingers on the cat. It just purrs louder.

“can’t let him wake up til his ribs are closed around again,” Red says for like the millionth time. “it’ll feel like his magic’s shorting out, because it’s gone in the middle and he won’t let it dust out.” Red’s mouth dropped from all the sniveling, so he sucks his teeth, finds a piece of crab left over.

“i know he’s gotta stay asleep or whatever. glad he is, i guess. gotta admit….it stung like a sonuvabitch when there was only _half_ my tibia left. edge was trying to pull it back, but he didn’t have much juice left, and i couldn’t take it anymore after a few minutes. he tried to play it off, but he couldn’t take me screaming like that, either. i begged him to let it go, the foot was long gone anyhow. and eventually….he did.”

Red sighs heavily.

“wish i hadn’t yelled at him about it later,” he whispers. “dunno if you heard me that time. eh. maybe still having a knee would have helped me get around, maybe not.” Red sighs. “i thought he’d just slap my shit, but instead he got all mopey, said he thought i’d die if he kept trying. and the way it felt, i might’ve. i don’t know that, either.”

Tibam doesn’t have much to say these days, but his ghost is as good a listener as ever.

“i just wanted ta get my _dick_ sucked, teebz!” Red whines. “how’s that a fuckin’ crime? i even did him _first_! i didn’t think he was waiting ta see how i’m put together and try and take me the fuck _apart_! but he was gonna,” he says, even though Tibam knows. He’s the one who found them when he heard Red scream, and got the piece of shit off of him in time for Edge to get there. “he had a whole _plan_. was gonna keep me alive long enough to keep my bro in line, which is how i didn’t just bite it right there. he was gonna sneak his lil deckhand bumboy around to twist my bro’s fuckin’ head off while he was ‘negotiating’. then mine.”

Red stops petting the cat for a second. He reaches out to palm the skull gently, strokes with his thumb, then goes back to the cat.

“just like that,” he rambles. “how can you touch someone all nice like that, then break their fuckin’ leg in half?”

Red knows, of course. It’s not like he never sweet talked someone into an alley and robbed em blind for their trouble. He just doesn’t like it when it happens to _him_.

“how come _you_ never sucked my dick, teebz?” Red grouses. Red had asked, Tibam had told him his dick died with his wife, and that’d been the end of that. Red can take no for an answer. He just feels like complaining tonight.

“I’M NOT GOING TO DO IT EITHER!” blasts Red’s back from the doorway, but Red smiles anyhow. Speaking of not smelling someone coming; no idea how he missed that. Eh. He can go without jacking it tonight if Sunshine wants to bunk up, make up for it with a nice little nooner tomorrow.

Sunshine has fun for a while trying to coax the cat out of Red’s lap so they can go to bed instead of just removing it, and Red leans back on his hands and lets him despite being tired as hell. Turns out drawing one of yesterday’s wilted, discarded flowers back and forth on the floor is even more irresistible than living on Red’s pelvis for the rest of its cat lifespan. Red laughs at Sunshine telling him all about a lot of nothing, watching the cat skitter around going apeshit for so long and so late, his yawns make his sockets start leaking.

When he and Sunshine finally settle in, Red's nasal cavity twitches with how sharp the scent of melly is on him. It’s not unusual, which surprised Red the first few times, but apparently he hits his own bottle pretty hard on the regular. Red seriously does _no_ _t_ know what to think about that, so he doesn’t. Smells even stronger than usual tonight, maybe, and Sunshine’s blinks are slow and uneven.

“you need a bedtime story, sunshine?” Red chuckles. “little ditty to send ya off to dreamland?”

“NO,” he sighs benignly, reaching out to palm Red’s skull affectionately. Red enjoys getting stroked like a cat to go with his drunken cuddles….right up until he recognizes the soft thumb-strokes over his orbital. And the look in those black eyes reminds him _way_ too much of the time Edge really _had_ offered him a bedtime handy, ‘if it would stop him from letting humans tear his legs off.’

“Is that really that nice?” Sunshine whispers, watching Red like he’s some kind of weird bug he’s never seen before. “Or is that only if you do the other part, too?”

Red slaps those long phalanges off his skull angrily.

“i _told_ ja not to fuckin _eavesdrop_ on me anymore!” he snarls. Edge had proposed his ‘arrangement’ in the same exact tone the greenstick who later became Piggy talked about being sick of milking cows on his pappy’s farm. And Red had dealt with that “offer” the way he always does when he _can’t_ deal with something. By cracking increasingly disgusting jokes about it every chance he got to make sure Edge knew he’d made a goddamn mistake. The memory did make three years of near-celibacy easier, when he considered he might have to hear the pitch again if Edge caught him out.

“YOU KNOW I COME HERE EVERY OTHER NIGHT! I WAS _EXPECTED_ ,” Sunshine pouts in a way more normal tone, and Red relaxes slightly. “AND THAT’S WHEN WE HAVE A SLUMBER PARTY, WHEN IT’S NOT EVERY _ODD_ NIGHT, WHEN I HAVE A SLUMBER PARTY WITH OUR BROTHERS!! I ALWAYS SHOW UP AT THE SAME TIME! IT’S NOT MY FAULT YOU WERE….YOU….”

Sunshine takes a deep breath. Then he lets it out and just sort of sags, even though he’s lying down. If anyone knows that saggy feeling, it’s Red, and the anger drains out of him. Sunshine angles his sockets away sheepishly, his limbs inching away from Red’s.

“I’m sorry for being creepy,” he whispers. “Would you like me to leave?”

“no!” Red yelps, then blushes. “no, i….you don’t have to leave, it’s….fine. we can, uh. we can bunk up. s’fine.”

“IS IT ALSO...NICE?” The weird-bug expression in his sockets is long gone, and it doesn’t come back. Instead he looks…pleading? Well…Sunshine is drunk, and just as lonely in his own way as Red. He wants Red to _like_ him…and it’s possible Red’s big mouth gave him the wrong idea about how to make that happen. Sure, he wouldn’t have told _that_ story to anyone who didn’t know it already, but it’s not like he ever shuts up about his dick’s woes elsewise.

Red’s creeped-outness melts. He nods and holds his arms out.

“i _already_ like ya, sunshine,” he whispers, just in case.

“OF COURSE YOU DO!” The words smear themselves wetly into Red’s shoulder. “EVERYONE DOES, BECAUSE I’M SO POPULAR! NO ONE GETS TIRED OF ME OR SAYS I’M LOUD AND BOSSY, EVEN A LITTLE BIT! I’M THE H-HANDSOMEST AND MOST….HELPFUL…!!”

Red rubs Sunshine’s back in a tight circle, just like he always does for Red when he starts bawling into his soup bowl. They both fall asleep in the middle of it.

Red wakes up with his face under a _whole_ iguana in the morning. Sunshine must have really been soused because he stays snoring despite Red’s wriggling, and the best Red can do in the clutches of the bone octopus is shake his skull until the carcass slides off.

That’s when Red sees the everted hemipenes, which had been touching his face.

“…. _dude_!!” Red squeals. “what the _fuck_??”

The cat, who from the smell just shat outside the tray of sand Red had so thoughtfully provided in the corner, jumps. Then it narrows its eyes at the little gift it left on Red’s fucking face, and licks it paw with smarmy pride.

Red looks at the iguana too. He shudders at the dry purple knobs of its reptilian snot factory, and his mouth drops all wet with nausea. He gets the bright idea to spit at the cat, who hisses at the blob of magic and runs away. Red looks back at his ill-appreciated gift and starts breathing through his now-dry mouth.

At least it’s dead.


	12. Making Up New Numbers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [LAKE – Christmas Island](https://youtu.be/uoztQkbp-o8)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The cavern is longer than it is wide, and Red can see the places the ocean ate holes in the rock. It’s totally enclosed and partially submerged; the only way in or out is their way, or maybe swimming up from underneath. Red doubts most humans could do it.

Indirect sunlight dapples its way in up top here and there, and some comes through the water, a source of ambient light from below. The far end of the space is below sea level and susceptible to tides, but nothing short of a tsunami could touch the rest of it. The fresh-fishy tang of rocky pools scents the place, and the ocean’s rush echoes into surges of white noise.

It would be one of most tranquil scenes Red’s come across if it wasn’t for the dull-dread miasma of the machine, now doubled with both of them here.

Red takes a deep breath before approaching where they hunch in Giger-esque tandem at the end farthest away from the water.

“nice digs,” he comments. “didja have any trouble getting it in here?”

Red hasn’t been here before. After pulling up the _BoneRipper_ , the next time he saw Comic, he claimed he’d already ‘taken care of it.’ Just like then, Comic gives him a companionably opaque smile and shrugs. Cooked spaghetti could stick to that wall. Red grins back and nods with mocking grace. He doesn’t ask him anything stupid, like if it’s safe here.

There _is_ nowhere safe to put the machine, because its presence automatically makes any place unsafe.

It’s exhausting.

Red and Comic automatically stop at the same point, which is just before the machines’ aura of existential menace strengthens to a touch-like sensation. Welp. That was a lovely walk on the beach, but now they’re there. Red’s not looking forward to getting all up in its guts, but this beggar’s choosing days are done chosed.

“just wondering something,” Red says, briefly chattering his teeth in distaste. “you said mine has parts yours doesn’t. far as i can tell, you’re yanking my chain.”

Comic’s expression isn’t, and he stays still and silent.

“you realize i’m gonna figure it out if we’re actually doing this, right?”

Comic sighs. Then he walks into the yuck zone and opens the machine’s jaws so Red can see inside.

“oh,” Red says flatly.

“yeah,” Comic rasps, walking back to where Red is.

His shoulders ease when Red doesn’t immediately ask how he either broke or lost five plates, which is one less than it needs at minimum for anything like what they’re planning. Or...what they will plan, depending on how this part goes.

Not that either of them know what the fuck this thing is actually _for_. Asking directly just led to unintelligible technical explanations of how it works, the world’s most boring version of mad libs, or rambles about “infinite possibilities” that never managed to get around to what it’s _supposed_ to do. Other than exploit the fact that time and space are a continuum, which amounts to them being the same thing.

It uses time to manipulate space, and space to manipulate time. That is even more terrifying than it sounds.

Each plate in the machine is a ‘discrete time crystal’. Now _that_ sounds like some sci fi bullshit, but he said he didn’t know what else to call them. The design is both impossible and simple, just a supercold atom eternally bouncing on an atom mirror. It is a crystal whose pattern repeats in time as well as space, and therefore a source of perpetual motion. Because it never reaches thermal equilibrium, it just goes back to the start. Since the machine never runs out of time, it also has limitless space.

Unless, of course, you’re missing five plates.

Red and Comic can do a lot of stuff. Though it could be said they helped, the machine is less something they made than something made from them. It’s what made them come here with the machine, or the machine come with them: for the same reason their bodies came along. Sans and Papyrus’s magic is a conduit for time and space, respectively.

It’s where the shortcuts come from. Sans just reaches for the next instant as it passes through him, then hitchhikes on it to wherever he planned to go anyhow. He just gets there sooner. A burst of magic expended, and boom. He’s there.

It never used to tax him at all, but now it bleeds him like a stiletto. Sort of how he never knew his mouth could stop working in the middle of eating if he did it too fast. His mouth can convert the substance here into something it can use, but only at a certain pace. Faster than that, and it leaks down through his mandible’s arch like his tongue stopped existing for a second.

As for Papyrus, all places are alike to him. When he’s in top shape he can move anywhere, in any direction, however he sees fit. He walks on air, somersaults through solid rock, and does the watusi on the ceiling. Only thing that ever stopped him was his own fatigue...and the barrier humans made to seal monsters underground for good.

(Gaster used to call himself Chaos, since he gave birth to Aether and Chronos. The fact that the mythology doesn’t track didn’t give him a whit of pause, the self-aggrandizing, glib piece of shit. But it _had_ been his magic’s effects on probability that had made at least one of the attempts to rejoin space and time in the form of magic succeed. He called it ‘science’, but being the only one able to replicate your results consistently seems like the biggest cheat of all to Red.)

Yeah, it’s made of them, but their magic isn’t specialized for certain delicate tasks. They can do a lot of shit, but they can’t make more plates.

They’re missing an ingredient.

In a way, Comic’s machine is dying.

“you thinking about it again?”

“nah,” Red lies easily. For some reason, the fact that Comic _knows_ he’s lying makes it easier to bear. Maybe that’s the long and short of it. Sans has never met anyone before who could truly understand how he feels right now, and it turns out to be Sans.

Red takes a deep, harsh breath, then turns back to Comic. He speaks first.

“you get all that not thinking about it outta your system?”

Red grunts, then does a long, slow exhale. “guess i c’n see why you were antsy ‘bout my plates, eh?” Comic’s huff is short and unamused, and Red continues. “doesn’t matter why they ain’t there, cause we gotta work around it no matter what.”

“then we might as well get started,” Comic says quietly. “and i-”

“just one more thing,” Red interrupts through a serrated grin, and Comic gives that the dubious look it deserves. “i took a pretty decent bonk to the noggin. how come you’re not worried i’ll forget how to rub two integers together and blow us to wherever’s worse than hell?”

“same reason you don’t need to know what happened to the plates,” Comic answers after half a beat too long.

Red chews on that for a second. It’s a plausible enough tidbit. The situation’s dire; Red’s not ideal, but he’s what Comic’s _got_. However, considering Comic’s preoccupation with the machine, it’s not a good enough reason for Comic to let Red anywhere near it. Red’s face twists into a sudden scowl of realization. Sunshine’s bad habits run in the family.

“if you wanted to listen to me jack off, you coulda just asked.”

Comic shrugs, unconcerned. “heard you yellin’ the roof down and thought you were having one of those, uh. episodes. hung around for a minute to make sure you weren’t. guess it was the cat leaving you your finder’s fee again.” He winks. “i make up new numbers to help myself get back to sleep sometimes, too, i just don’t usually do it out loud.”

Red flushes.

“i liked [],” Comic offers, waggling his browbones like he’s flirting.

“yeah, well.” Red clears magic in his skull. He wishes. “i ain’t worked out all the kinks yet.”

“just as well, since we’re gonna have to get pretty kinky to make these two hunks of junk bump uglies.” Comic seems gratified by Red’s snort, then he sobers. “...so. turns out i got a ‘one more thing’, too.”

Well, never let it be said there was a buzz Comic created that he couldn’t kill.

“whaddaya need this time, whitey? firstborn? my other leg, maybe?”

“need you to promise once we start, you won’t dip out.”

Red stares at him flatly.

“i mean it. an unreliable partner’s worse than none at all.”

“i think my soul jus’ turned to dust outta sheer fuckin’ _irony_ ,” Red growls dangerously. “the hell you trying to say?”

Comic’s grin doesn’t flag, the teflon tightass. It’d bother Red more if it weren’t for the brittleness Red scents like blood underneath that smooth bullshit grin. Or maybe that just bothers him more. It’s proportional bothering.

“i want you to promise that you won’t dip out once we start,” he repeats, like he’s ready to do this all day. “and that you’re in it til every plate’s squared away. sorry, thought i was pretty clear on that one.”

“when you decide to be a fuckin’ hardass?”

Comic’s grin broadens.

“bone ass is born hard,” he burbles.

Red changes tactics.

“tell me what you were trying to do when this shit happened.”

Comic’s sockets tighten. To Red surprise, he answers.

“it was supposed to give me a projected enthalpy for four years ago, then four hundred from now. i was trying to check industrialization levels, not cause this fuckarow. checking against other variables, trying to see if there was an option where it dipped.”

Red grunts.

“to see if you already did something about it at some point, then see about gettin’ a fucka _ree_ goin’.”

Comic’s breath shudders out.

“maybe, sure.”

That’s not actually how causation works. But it _is_ the way the twin pseudoscience dumpsters in front of them work.

“you got a bead on the shape of what happened? torn outta place by time, maybe? or, you came, and we had to go too for some reason?”

Comic shudders. “just an idea, but….i think it was like a wake, yeah. you got dragged along behind, same reason we go with the machine.”

“promise i’ll stay on task til the last plate’s been through the bath,” he grunts shortly. He turns and plod back towards their little camp area, as far away from the machines as is practical, already tugging at his cape’s fastenings.

“speaking of baths, you ever heard the one about the skeleton and the werewolf?” rumbles behind him, and Red rolls his eyes.

Red hadn’t bothered even bringing his pretties here; those are under his brother’s pillow. The ones he wears daily, at least. He’s not dumb enough to put his valuables all in one place. They get their shirts off too so nothing interferes with their movements. Comic stays bullshitting until Red turns to tuck em by their bunks. He finishes the joke kinda limply, and when Red turns, Comic’s moving his eyes quickly away from something.

Red chuckles, arches to reach back and finger a few of the deeper ones. He forgets about em cause they don’t hurt; he was so young they just became part of his shape when they healed. Probably why Comic didn’t see em when he was laid up, at least not very well, and Red doesn’t give strangers his back when he’s awake. Comic’s already had better chances to stab him, and he’s smooth all over like Red barely remembers being, once. Ain’t half bad to look at, neither. Red’s a loss, but it’s nice to know he’d had potential.

“what, you never seen a few beauty marks before?” Red says, tossing his skull just like the sweetie he beat down to get his own stripes off. She’d had hair, but whatever. It’s still cute. “guess it hits different seeing em on y’self, huh?”

“something like that,” Comic says hoarsely. “just, uh. wondering how you’re not dead is all.”

“no _intent_ , dumbass,” Red says, frowning. “what, you think this’s from _attacks_? tchh. do you need dodging lessons or something? no wonder you wanna spar.”

“then what the fuck’s it _from_?”

Red rolls his eyes again, then grins as an idea comes to him. He lurches down to snatch up their shirts, straightens, and bounces the bundle on his hip for Comic. Then he mimes a startle, crouches and ‘dodges’, all while clutching the bundle to his chest. He turns his own back like a shield, miming hits from shrapnel, brick chunks, exploding wood, and whatever else got hit _instead_ of Red or his baby bro raining down. He clacks his teeth together loudly to indicate a belated shortcut, just as the second it used to take him to actually _do_ them expires.

Red turns around, proudly presenting his intact “baby”. Not to the expression he expected.

“i didn’t have a peg then, asshole, so i actually moved.” He clacks his teeth. “shortcut.” He tosses the shirts back down, face heating. Guess landlubbers can’t appreciate a good puppet show. “what, folks here don’t tell it like that?”

“sure they do,” Comic says quietly. “usually talk along with it, though. those still hurt?”

Red’s grin returns, defiant in the face of Comic’s bullshit. It’s like their routine at this point.

“nah, i was too little. ya bounce right back from whatever as long as it ain’t someone’s business end.” He winks. “i gotta tell ya, humans like that story a lot more than you did.” And some would tell about theirs, if they had enough drink in em. “ya know, you could at least pretend to be less horrified for politeness’ sake,” he points out irritably. “it’s kinda putting some cracks in your smooth motherfucker act. what, didja think i was from the suburbs?” Red doesn’t really know what those are, but he’s read stuff. Comic’s expression is opaque again.

“jus’ seems like a messy way to handle things is all,” he says evenly. Red scoffs.

“what’d you do in your place, pinch dicks til someone cried?”

“only on weekends,” Comic says predictably. “so, we ready to get this party started?”

“fine, whatever,” Red grumbles.

Red sees Comic already dug a trench, so he goes ahead and fuses the sand to line it with sterile, tempered glass. After some discussion, they decide to work as if they’re merging the machines to make space for the plates. That’s mostly breakdown, and they can always switch it up later for whatever config they end up needing. For now they’re gonna use Comic’s to store ‘clean’ plates, since any disharmony between Comic’s and Red’s would probably be bad, and the five empty slots give them working time.

When it comes time to fill the bath, Comic hesitates, and Red’s already bracing himself.

“he didn’t ever, uh…?” Comic draws his thumb across his neck cornily.

It makes sense. He’s probably have to adjust the bath to accommodate LV.

“…nah.” Red makes his click-suck noise deep in his skull. If Gaster had gained any LV at all, he couldn’t have kept fucking with the machine. It changes your magic, which is what Comic’s been banking on with rescuing Red along with the machine.

His LV puts off way more waste heat than Comic could muster at his best, and it functions differently than most thermal energies. He can _add_ heat to the atoms to stop the bounce, and Comic can _remove_ the heat rather than cooling it down. Seems like they’re the same thing, but they’re not. It’s part of why they have to get the math right.

Working together, it should be survivable to move plates from one machine to the other, get their charge identical so they can work together instead of...something else. It’s dangerous on a possibly universal scale, but he doesn’t think about that part. Instead he just chatters his teeth again as they approach Red’s machine. Now that he’s closer, Red can see Comic’s machine still has the chassis and several more conduits than his does. Nothing as important as the plates, but he still appreciates Comic not rubbing it in.

Red reaches out and stops the bouncing, and Comic and Red reach in at the same time to take it. Red grinds his teeth to help him ignore how he can almost feel where they’re touching it. They’re able to actually grab it because it exists in quite a few moments at once, hence the trail it makes when they move it. One of those things that gets more and less likely as it goes along, so the quicker they can manage to get it where it goes, the better. They get down to their knees to put it where it needs to go. Red suppresses a wince, decides he might try a dry run without his peg when he gets a chance.

Comic could have put the basin closer, but Red doesn’t blame him for keeping it just outside the yuck zone. They get it in, and Red shifts quickly for comfort. Comic’s eyes lose focus, sitting opposite him with his hand in the bath as it fills. Red stays quiet, since charging ions takes concentration, but he doesn’t like it.

“hokay,” Comic sighs, shaking off his fingers and wiping them on his sarong. “that’ll do ‘er. five hours til it dings.”

They move on to breaking down the housing into raw ingots ready for whatever they decide needs done. Red’s method is different from Comic, since the waste heat’s free firepower. Now that’s busywork, and Red doesn’t like the quiet this close to the machine. He doesn’t like being quiet most of the time, really, and most of the humans here still don’t talk to him. Well, other than Chei, but she’s been avoiding him since their little tiff. He left a message with Sunshine to let her know he’s working.

“you seen that meatsplat around before we left?” he mutters, voicing his thought.

“chei?” Comic doesn’t look up from his work. “sure. i told her me and you had to go on a hunt.” Then his eyes flicker up, taking in Red with his basketball-sized lump of molten glass. “that’s what that word means, by the way. that we hunt together.”

Red snorts. “ya don’t say. i kinda got the impression it means you’re hunting my dick,” he chortles, tossing his lump to the side. “either you’re a worse hunter than the goddamn cat, or chei’s got the wrong idea.” Comic laughs, careful not to let his shoulder shake.

“hey now, seems like the problem you got is that the cat’s too good at hunting. but uh, nah….it’s like, a lotta folks in the men’s village hunt together, split the work, bunk up. same word whether they canoodle or not.” He frowns slightly, several ingots forming and plapping down.

They shoot the shit for a while, then eventually get down to business.

“so, you wanna run it by me?” Comic says. “figure one of us has to go first, might as well be the one winning the race.”

Red huffs in absent amusement; Comic’s the one going slow and steady. Red’s swiping across the glass in quick bursts to melt it, then takes twice as long to cool it til a safe chunk of rounded glass hits the sand.

“i always figured it was supposed to either skip right to the point where the barrier gets broken, or find a way to use all that time to move someone _outside_ it.” Red sighs. “considering i could never do it it myself, i dunno why he thought that would work. Still more reliable than the first one, though.”

Comic shudders. “yeah, dying instantly cause you already did isn’t my idea of an optimal outcome.”

The barrier exists in all dimensions, and is continuous across them. Red personally thinks numbering dimensions is stupid, since whatever dimension souls occupy flouts that kind of thinking pretty hardcore. Flouts the idea of dimensions at all, if he’s honest. But that’s what the barrier’s made of, and anything as piddly as space, time, magic, or a planet-slicing sword from Alphys’s anime can’t hold a fucking candle.

However, the fact that it exists in presumably all dimensions at some point creates a dimensionless fundamental constant the machine’s fuckery can be calculated around. A universe inside another universe, and the barrier touches both. A bridge between them that only goes one way, unless you apply some time, space and chaos. Then you might be able to go somewhere else.

Thing is, infinite possibilities make deciding which one is the most possible even harder. Which is what Comic is asking him.

“there’s a few options, but my thinking is that there’s really only _one_ that might actually work. it’s what i was going for, and mine’s already set up for it, too.”

Comic nods cautiously.

“we can try and make it so breaking the barrier _here_ lines up with whenever it happens for _our_ places, then find a way to make it happen. i was gonna send humies down there. since we’re here already, we can use our own sequences like a grappling hook and tug the whole shebang over to spill them out on our end.” Red sighs. “that way it’s everyone instead of just us. trouble is….they gotta do it themselves at some point for it to work. it’s just a rerouting to and from the moment when it breaks.”

“it’s possible i came to the same conclusion,” Comic says. His expression is the least readable Red’s ever seen it, and that’s saying something. “tough titties is, we gotta get to ebott for that. it won’t work from here.”

“you know where it is, huh?”

Red was aiming for an ‘i know something you don’t know’ tone, but Comic looks like a bunch of things suddenly make sense. Oh, well. Not all his gambits can be winners.

“you ever seen a map?” Comic asks, and Red barks a short laugh of outrage.

“i had motherfuckers _making_ em for me, dumbass!” Comic doesn’t seem impressed. “the problem's supply and manpower. we had trouble scraping together what we needed to get around the fuckin’ horn, cause my gut was tellin’ me it might be up the other side, and we weren’t about ta try and march the machine through the fuckin’ jungle.”

“why not go the other way?”

Red scoffs.

“takes even more supply from where we were at, and it’s more dangerous. you really don’t know much about sailing, huh? that’s why we were cruisin’ around that rich little pussy divot in the caribbean trying to drum up some sauce. figure out a way to carry enough to last the trip since we didn’t know the sitch on the other side, control a supply ship or two, fight our way past the nasty business down south…we...”

Red trails off.

“something happened?” Comic asks after a bit.

Red angrily grabs up another wad of glass. His nasal cavity flares with the scorched-air scent of it.

“we got tired,” he rasps. “had no place to rest up, get our heads right and actually plan. other shit kept happening that we had to deal with. too dangerous to stop off anywheres, and half the time the problem was in the fuckin’ _boat_ with us. edge was cap at first and it was a fuckin’ _disaster_ , lost a quarter of our people and i had to mutiny to keep us from dying adrift. he almost killed me, but it was a small price to pay. then i got all these assholes hurtin’ each other in ways you wouldn’t fuckin’ _believe_ , and one of em, he sweet talked me til i just, he took my leg n jus,” Red can’t breathe, he can’t breathe and the glass is getting hotter again, he can’t- “he fuckin broke it right in front me, and pap said ‘m a useless fuckin slut who d...deserved what i got...”

Red throws his chunk of glass down and backpedals away.

“what the fuck didja do to me, g?” he whispers, horrified. “why you….you gotta...”

“red?” Comic asks cautiously, hands visible and empty.

Sudden guilt crushes Red like an anvil from heaven. Talking shit about his baby brother while he’s lying in a sickhut, helpless and armless because of _Red_. Saying a bunch of shit he didn’t mean to say, he didn’t…. He’s gotta see him. Gotta make sure he’s okay, knows Red didn’t mean it, he didn’t mean to say all that horrible shit, and all he can see are Edge’s sockets widening in hurt and shock, he...he needs him. His brother needs him _right now_.

(He needs his brother)

Red turns around, already gathering what he’s got left. Then he stops.

“red.”

Comic’s got his fingers circled around Red’s wrist; if he goes, the buddy system’s mandatory.

“if you go, it’s gonna drain your juice, be a few hours before you get back. you know i’m right. then the bath dings, and i got no one here to heat the next plate. next thing you know, you decide to sleep on it. then one more time for good measure.”

Red sweats at nothing in particular.

“week goes by, maybe two. you come back, stare at it, cover it back up. next time you come down, you think, hey, it’s a shame to disturb all that dust, right? it’s just minding it’s own business. having a little dust nap.”

Comic’s hand is getting tighter and tighter.

“might be _you_ wanna have a lil dust nap t-”

“shut _up_!” Red snarls, snatching his arm back. “…just. shut the fuck up,” he finishes quietly, rubbing his wrist.

Okay, Gaster hadn’t been a good person. He’d been an indifferent and incompetent caretaker, an obsessed looney who built a machine out of children, and generally useless for things that were relevant or important at any given time. But he’d been _his_ , and Red wanted to drag him back to kill him for leaving if he wasn’t dead or undead or some kind of omniscient superbeing seeing all and unable to affect any of it.

Red suppresses the urge to duck, the shadow of it passing over him.

Whatever. He’d been….theirs.

Red swallows bitter magic, and turns to look at Comic. His sockets still contain white points, dim and small. But not hopeless, not yet. Not…anymore? Red rubs his wrist again. All the stuff since they got here, Red shouldered it along with his bro and they still couldn’t fucking hack it. He admits it. They couldn’t do what they needed to do, and Comic doesn’t know shit about that.

But the machine? Well, Comic knows how that is. Losing what they needed, which was someone to take care of them. They’d been so little, and he was just...gone. And there was Paps bawling his sockets out, even littler. That injustice is something he can see writ all over Comic’s face, just like it’s etched into Red’s soul.

 _Theirs_.

“fine,” Red grunts, pretending indifference. “don’t gotta get your panties in a wad over it.”

And he stumps back to work like nothing happened. Since it didn’t.

“why don’t we dismantle the chassis,” Comic suggests quickly, and Red jerks a nod. They need to get the fuck away from these things. Both of them. It’s quick business to get it off, and they carry it halfway down the cavern.

“i hate that fuckin’ thing,” Red whispers after a while. “can’t stay near it, can’t get away from it.” He flicks his eyes up at Comic bent intently over his own work. “makes me act fucking weird. must be good to know it ain’t just you, i guess.”

Comic stays silent. If he thinks Red didn’t notice him foaming at the mouth around Red’s machine, he’s got another thing coming. Apparently being around Comic’s machine gets Red some kinda way, too. Or maybe it’s just them being together like that, who fucking knows. That’s all. Red hisses, shakes his hand and puts his pinched finger in his mouth. Stupid piece of shit.

The chassis on Red’s machine got tore off early on during their scramble to get out of Dodge. If he’s had it, it might have been a more viable option to take it overland; out of the question with it missing. Comic’s can be broken down and expanded to hold them both, or split and rearranged if they need them separate. More of that infinite possibilities shit, although for once it seems like that’s actually useful.

“neither of us is who we’d be if we weren’t here,” Comic says, twisting tiny metal bits lightning fast with nimble bone fingertips. “and uh.” White eyes flick at Red. “recent events probably don’t help that much.” Comic exhales shakily, and Red’s surprised when he rushes out, “if that was my bro like that, i can’t say what i’d do. might jus’ be a crater here.” He twists metal bits even faster.

“don’t be too sure there won’t be.”

“never said i was,” Comic replies, tone a little lighter. His mouth twitches, then eases. “how about we break for lunch after this, and uh. maybe work on the housing in shifts.” Because the housing work requires basically humping the machines, which turns out to have its downsides all around.

“we’ll get used to it,” Red mutters later when they’re digging into the massive pone Sunshine made to go with their meals. Comic sighs.

“sorry,” he says shortly. “i had time to build a tolerance. you didn’t. i shoulda thought of that.”

Red shrugs uncomfortably, sucks sweet paste off his sore fingers. The food’s helping more than he expected, especially the half-magic pone. Most of the supples were already here, including Sunshine’s specialty blown up to gastronomical proportions. It’s a leaf-wrapped obelisk the size of a small tabletop. Between the sugar and the magic, it’ll keep just fine. If it even lasts; they’re both already making some impressive inroads.

After lunch, it’s like their little foray into crazytown from being near the machines for too long helps them settle into a comfortable rhythm. Red has to admit watching Comic helps him suss his own state, and it seems mutual. Whenever Comic suggests they do something a little further away, Red takes him up on it. And when Red looks up from unscrewing a connection to see tears streaming down Comic’s impassively grinning face, he finally asks what the thing in the corner covered in woven mats is. They head over together so he can show him. Turns out to be a hole slowly filling with barely-brackish water in case they need to rinse off.

“how’d you stand being on a fucking boat with it?” Comic whispers once his tears finally cease, not looking at him. He dabbles his hand in the pool, dug under one of the roof-holes so the sun can theoretically warm it. Right now it mostly just looks pretty, Comic’s fingers making reflected light dance across his own face like the sunset that day. It’s getting toward sunset now, based on the honey-orange tone the light’s taking on.

“same way i dealt with having it in the basement,” Red mutters. Badly. “sometimes you ain’t got no choice, sweetheart. you jus’ get used to it.”

“yeah,” he whispers. “i guess so.”

They stay like that for a little bit, but then it’s time to take the first plate out of the bath. They head back over and Comic checks the plate, gives the nod. Their expressions tighten as they approach, but putting the plate into Comic’s machine goes off without a hitch. They flinch together at the sound it makes, then exhale in relief.

“welp,” Comic says. “time for the next one.” His expression’s still not right, but Red weighs that against the importance of keeping their schedule. They went over the numbers quite a few times. Now that they’ve begun the transfer, the machine’s on a timer. Each plate removed makes it slightly less stable until the last one’s gone, and the ten hours they have for leeway isn’t something they really want to test, especially if there ends up being a real emergency they have to delay for. No guarantee anything would happen, but some infinite sets are larger than others. Reducing the chances of disaster is about the best you can do with it.

They get the plate out no problem, hunker down again as Red grinds his teeth. They’re about halfway to the bath when it happens.

Comic’s knee hits a rock under the sand, and it startles him more than it should. His hand overcorrects on the amount of pressure needed to hold their burden securely.

The thin, iridescent plate shatters into ten pieces.

Comic has every last bit of it gathered into a protective construct before Red can even register what happened. Then he does, and gapes it at like he just watched his own soul break.

Then he looks up at Comic.

Uh oh.

“hey. dunno bout you, but i can fix that, okay?” Red says quickly. No response, but it’s true. Too bad Comic can’t see the truth in his expression. Those white eyes are nowhere to be seen, and Comic’s as still as a human corpse. Where Red comes from and the crowd he’s been rolling with, he knows better than to touch anyone who looks like that. “hey.”

Still no response. Red feels a flutter of real panic tickling his nonexistent throat when he hears a high, subaudible whine start. People say shit about what they would do if they lost it, and a lot of the time it ends up being true. And Comic _just_ said there would be a crater here.

“i can fix it, dude, done it on my own before. no big thing, just a little heat and a lotta elbow grease.” The plates are unimaginably fragile, and Comic isn’t any more clumsy than Red is. If it was Papy he’d already have smacked him with a construct to snap him out of it, but Comic can’t take that hit.

The drone quadruples, Comic still hasn’t moved or spoken, and Red takes a gamble. It’s what he does.

“sans!” Red reaches out and grabs his hand, and the sound cuts off like he took his knife to it. Red recklessly moves closer. “i can _fix_ it, you dumb fuck! there’s two of us now. we can figure it out, helps when there’s someone to bounce shit off of, right? you’re not alone, we can-”

“yuh….” It’s just a noise, but Red considers himself interrupted anyhow. Comic’s eyes are struggling back into existence, and he starts breathing again. So that’s good. Red’s still holding on, since Comic’s squeezing his hand like a lifeline. So Red takes another gamble, shuffles right up in the same kinda-kneeling position, til he gets close enough to—yep, Comic’s grabbed on to him tight, arms around Red’s neck and shuddering all over like a dog that just escaped a burning building.

He drags him away from the machines awkwardly, sets the construct on the ground. It can stay its ass there til Red gets to it. Comic clings to him hard, and Red hesitantly returns the hug, does his best to just….hold him. Like Comic did for him that time. Keeps his teeth shut tight around a bunch of dumbass lies he wants to tell, like _it’s gonna be okay_ , or _just leave it to me_. Kinda shit he only ever said to Papy, and even those….not for a long time. He doesn’t know why he wants to.

Red almost has the weird feelings stuffed right back into whatever hole they crawled out of when Comic does a barely-there little juddering in his arms, and yeah. No dice. Red grits his teeth even harder. Red’s an old hand at the trick of crying in silence. Thing is, it doesn’t work if someone’s holding you. Red feels it. Red exhales tight and slow, rubs Comic’s back in a hesitant circle. Another violent shudder runs through Comic, the faint clack of bones protesting its progress. This time it leaves a profound loosening in its wake.

“you can fix it.” Comic sounds like he tried to cool the melted housing by drinking it, a breath barely shaped into a voice at all. “you c….can fix it?”

“yeah, Red manages, hoarse as horseshit. “good as new.”

Not even close to that, but it’ll probably work. The part’s not replaceable, but Red’s used to that. Lots of irreplaceable stuff like crews and ships and legs and brothers in Red’s life. He knows some broken things can’t be fixed, not like they were before.

But what’s left will have to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep writing massive footnotes for this and not putting them. Well, this time, I'm gonna!!
> 
> -What Comic said (“[]”):  
> I personally enjoy the idea that skeletons can say words, in this case, a number-word, that express(es) a quantity that would require a large space to write out. In this case, it’s a Ramsey number involving a red and blue graph, and he was totes flirting.  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramsey_theory  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinitary_combinatorics
> 
> Time crystals are a thing jsyk:  
> https://physicsworld.com/a/time-crystals-enter-the-real-world-of-condensed-matter/
> 
> It won’t matter for the story! I just see things like “the atom mirror could be, for example, a blue-detuned repulsive light sheet” and think, “AWWW!!! Just like Sans Undertale!!”


End file.
